Bitcoin +15K | Iran Protests | USD Index | Gold price up

The precious metal, gold has started the year with a bang, thanks to the saggy dollar index. The yellow metal has enjoyed a nine-day rally and it crossed above a critical point of $1300. Crossing this level was a clear indication that the bulls are in strong control of the price and the longer trend is skewed to the upside. Having said that, it is also important to pay attention to technical indicators and the 14 day - Relative Strength Index is giving a warning sign because it has topped the level of 70. This is usually a sign that some overbuying is taking place in the market and perhaps some correction may be on the cards. Nonetheless, the index can stay in the overbought territory for more than the usual time, especially when the momentum is strong and the bulls control the balance of power.

Wall Street started the year with the same momentum as the last year and both Nasdaq and S&P500 posted some record highs. This is supporting the sentiment over in Europe.

The EUR/USD dollar has eased off this morning after a smashing start for this year. The rally is primarily pumped by the optimism that the eurozone's economy is performing well and the European central bank would stay on track to finish its ultra-loose monetary policy this year in September. We do think that the path of least resistance for the euro-dollar pair is skewed to the upside and the pair could touch the level of 1.28 by the end of this year. The currency pair has touched a four-month high of 1.2081 yesterday and the September 2017 high of 1.2092 remain very much on the table.

The dollar index is trading towards its low of the day and it has already broken the November 27 low of 92.49 and now targeting the September 08th low of 91.41. The FOMC minutes are due later today and traders would like to know the more reasonable answer around the biggest debate - inflation. During Janet Yellen's tenure, she hasn’t made any meaningful progress around inflation. A vast majority of Fed staff do think that weakness in the core inflation may continue this year and the upcoming Fed chairman, Jerome Powell would have to address this issue pretty much head-on. The Fed needs to explain if they have any plans to increase the interest rate more than 3 times this year given that they did increase the outlook for economic growth.

Over in Iran, the protests accelerates mainly due to the orchestra from abroad chiefly Mr Trump who took the matters to Twitter to divide the nation further. Mr Trump had a meeting with his administration to put sanctions on Iran. Any action which involves new or old sanctions on Iran by the US would not be taken lightly by Iran and that would have some serious impact on the gold price. Oil is hovering near a 30-month high and investors are concerned if the situation get out of control it would have supply disruption and Iran pumps nearly 3.8 million barrels a day.

Bitcoin has bounced back up after a WSJ report showed that a venture firm (which has a track record on betting big firms like Airbnb and SpaceX) has been accumulating bitcoin and the fund may be holding approximately $20million worth of Bitcoin. BTC has crossed above the 15K mark, an important resistance level broken, and this opens the floor for Bitcoin to move towards the 20K mark (as long as it stays above 15K).

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