With today’s release of the Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) price index by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Bitcoin market just experienced the most important macro event of the week. Ahead of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) of the US Federal Reserve (Fed) on May 2-3, all eyes were on the PCE today.<\/p>\n
The latter is known as the Fed’s favorite inflation gauge. (versus CPI). It measures prices paid by consumers for domestic purchases of goods and services and excludes food and energy.<\/p>\n
The baseline was as follows: February’s core PCE index was +0.3% on a monthly basis, below the forecast of +0.4%. For March, analysts expected an increase of +0.3%. On an annualized (YoY) basis, an increase of 4.5% was expected, a slight drop from the previous month’s 4.6%.<\/p>\n
Hitting expectations or any “positive” surprises were expected to be bullish for the Bitcoin market. Renowned analyst Ted (@tedtalksmacro) stated<\/a> up front: “Bulls want to continue seeing it trend south!” and added the chances for a bullish surprise were good: “CPI + PPI prints earlier in the month, at least for now, suggests that the path of least resistance is for lower inflation numbers.”<\/p>\n These expectations were not met. As reported by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, core PCE came in at 0.3% on a monthly basis, as expected. On an annual basis, core PCE fell to 4.6%, also delivering the expected number.<\/p>\n BREAKING: US PCE data is out!<\/p>\n Headline y\/y 4.2% vs 4.1% expectation<\/p>\n Headline m\/m 0.1% vs 0.1% expectation<\/p>\n Core y\/y 4.6% vs 4.58% expectation<\/p>\n Core m\/m 0.3% vs 0.3% expectation<\/p>\n — Markets & Mayhem (@Mayhem4Markets) April 28, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\nPCE Slightly Impacts Bitcoin Price<\/h2>\n
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