Bitcoin plunges below $89,000 as global stocks stay muted ahead of Nvidia earnings

The S&P 500 closed up 0.5% on Wednesday, rebounding after a four-day tech-led slide, as traders poured back into AI-heavy names ahead of Nvidia’s blockbuster earnings report.

The Nasdaq Composite jumped 0.8%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average eked out a 54-point gain (0.1%), ending the session with a whimper but still in the green.

Alphabet soared more than 3%, hitting a fresh all-time high on the back of growing excitement around Gemini 3, its newly announced AI model unveiled Tuesday.

The move helped re-anchor confidence in the AI trade, which had come under pressure in recent sessions amid concerns over stretched valuations.

All eyes, though, are on Nvidia, which rose more than 2% into the close. The chip titan, and the largest weight in the S&P 500, is expected to report after the bell, with Wall Street betting on another beat driven by surging demand for AI processors and data infrastructure.

Analysts are forecasting strong Q3 sales growth, and the reaction to the results could set the tone for the entire AI complex moving forward.

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Bitcoin’s bounce is officially a no-show, and leveraged bulls are stuck bleeding. Ahead of Nvidia earnings on Wednesday, the world’s biggest crypto has dropped almost 30%, and now trades around $89,500 in Wednesday New York trading, with no relief in sight.

What’s worse: traders betting on a rebound have not only lost money, and they’ve trapped themselves.

On offshore exchanges like Binance, open interest in Bitcoin perpetual futures (the main weapon of choice for leveraged punters) jumped by over 36,000 BTC last week, worth more than $3.3 billion, according to K33 Research. That’s the biggest spike since April, and it happened as prices were falling; a rare and dangerous setup.

Normally, in down markets, funding rates go negative as bulls retreat. Not this time. Rates have stayed elevated and positive, meaning traders kept piling into long positions, even as Bitcoin slipped below $98K, then $95K, then $91K, and now $89K.

“Perp open interest is back at its October peak,” said Vetle Lunde of K33, warning that the market is now primed for liquidation squeezes.

A big part of the pain stems from resting limit orders; pre-set buys triggered as Bitcoin dipped. These were meant to catch a discount; instead, they dragged traders into fresh leveraged exposure just as momentum soured.

According to K33, in seven previous instances of similar positioning dynamics, Bitcoin fell again six times, with an average one-month drop of 15%. Retail traders are still holding the bag, while institutions, as seen in BlackRock’s IBIT outflows, are already heading for the exits.

U.S. stocks opened higher on Wednesday, snapping a four-day tech-led losing streak, as Alphabet shares surged 5% and traders rotated back into the AI trade ahead of Nvidia’s earnings later today.

The S&P 500 rose 0.2%, while the Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.5%. The Dow, weighed down by non-tech names, fell 152 points (–0.3%).

The rebound was sparked by renewed optimism around artificial intelligence, with Alphabet’s rally driven by excitement over its Gemini 3 AI rollout, which launched Tuesday.

Investors, shaken by days of selling, appear to be betting that Nvidia’s results will deliver reassurance and push back on the idea that AI valuations have run too far, too fast.

Primary dealers are resisting pressure from the Federal Reserve to tap its Standing Repo Facility (SRF), a key liquidity backstop designed to stabilize the $12 trillion U.S. repo market.

Despite rising stress in short-term funding, Wall Street banks are still wary of borrowing directly from the Fed, worried it might signal weakness or trouble to markets.

During a closed-door meeting last week, Fed officials urged major banks to make greater use of the SRF, but dealers pushed back hard, citing both stigma and operational hurdles, according to sources briefed on the discussions.

The SRF, created in 2021, was meant to prevent repo market seizures like those seen in 2019 and early 2020. It allows primary dealers, banks that trade government securities directly with the Fed, to access liquidity by posting Treasuries in exchange for cash.

But uptake has remained almost nonexistent, even as market volatility rises and liquidity fractures emerge across short-term instruments.

Some dealers noted that using the facility could trigger scrutiny from investors or counterparties, while others cited balance-sheet constraints or internal policy frictions that make it difficult to operationalize the borrowing process.

European equity markets found some footing on Wednesday, with the Stoxx 600 up 0.2% by midmorning London time, signaling that the brutal tech-driven sell-off may be starting to lose steam.

The FTSE 100 ticked up 0.10% to 9,561.38, while Germany’s DAX gained 0.26%, and Spain’s IBEX 35 climbed 0.35%. France’s CAC 40 was virtually flat, and Italy’s FTSE MIB dipped slightly.

The Stoxx 600, which tracks large and mid-cap firms across 17 European countries, held at 562.78, up just under 1 point.

Fresh data out of the U.K. showed inflation cooling to 3.6% in October, a development that’s already fueling talk of a possible Christmas rate cut from the Bank of England. The figure matched economists’ expectations and lands just a week before Chancellor Rachel Reeves unveils her Autumn Budget.

Markets reacted swiftly: sterling slipped against both the dollar and euro, while gilt yields diverged.

The 2-year U.K. gilt yield fell by 2 basis points, signaling short-term rate cut hopes, while the 10-year and 30-year yields crept higher, with the latter holding above the critical 5% mark, the highest long-term borrowing cost among G7 nations.

The inflation print gives U.K. equities some breathing room, just as the FTSE 100 hovers near the symbolic 10,000 level. But bond traders aren’t relaxing yet, with fiscal uncertainty still ahead, gilts are trading like nerves are still frayed.

Chinese lithium prices surged for a third straight day, with futures blowing past 100,000 yuan ($14,065) per ton on Wednesday before cooling slightly, a powerful rally fueled by renewed demand optimism from the energy storage sector.

But the sharpness of the move is starting to rattle nerves.

The Guangzhou Futures Exchange’s most-active lithium carbonate contract has now climbed almost 20% in November, reaching its highest level since July 2024.

Spot prices are moving in tandem, with battery makers reportedly restocking ahead of projected supply constraints in early 2026.

Traders say sentiment changed after Ganfeng Lithium’s chairman predicted that prices could soar to 200,000 yuan per ton next year, assuming demand rises more than 30%.

That forecast electrified the market, especially given how lithium had languished since peaking in 2022, weighed down by oversupply and slower-than-expected EV growth.

Now, with energy storage demand picking up, bulls are back. But some warn that the speed of the rally feels frothy, especially with macro volatility and EV sales still uneven globally.

Yields across the U.S. Treasury curve held mostly flat on Wednesday, as investors hunkered down ahead of a flood of delayed economic data and the all-important nonfarm payrolls report due Thursday, which could tip the scales for the Federal Reserve’s December rate call.

The 10-year Treasury yield nudged slightly lower by less than 1 basis point, holding around 4.117%, while the 2-year note hovered at 3.573%. The 30-year yield barely moved, last quoted at 4.74%.

Rates across the short-end of the curve, including the 1-month (3.945%) and 3-month (3.882%), inched higher, reflecting cautious front-end repositioning.

This cautious pause follows a resolution to the U.S. government shutdown, which had delayed the release of critical data like the October trade balance and September nonfarm payrolls.

Fed Governor Chris Waller on Monday made it clear the central bank is watching labor trends, not inflation, as the key variable in deciding whether to push through another rate cut in December.

Waller also downplayed concerns about rising inflation expectations, reinforcing the view that slower job growth could tip the Fed’s hand.

Gold prices pushed higher early Wednesday, with spot gold rising 0.5% to $4,089.59 per ounce, and U.S. gold futures for December delivery ticking up 0.6% to $4,090.30, as markets leaned into risk-off mode ahead of two major U.S. catalysts: the Federal Reserve’s meeting minutes and a delayed jobs report.

Demand for gold tends to spike when volatility rises, and with uncertainty swirling around interest rate policy, sentiment is clearly tilting defensive.

Traders are waiting for clues from the Fed minutes due later today, hoping for insight into just how committed the central bank is to keeping rates higher for longer.

The U.S. jobs data, which had been postponed due to the recent government shutdown, will drop Thursday.

Economists surveyed by Reuters expect it to show a gain of just 50,000 jobs in September, a sharp slowdown that could reinforce bets that the rate-hike cycle is peaking.

Jobless claims data released Tuesday showed the number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits climbed to a two-month high in mid-October, another sign that the labor market may be cooling.

The FTSE 100’s run toward the 10,000-point milestone has stalled just short, with the U.K.’s top equity index now hovering below 9,600 after peaking at a record 9,930 last week.

While it’s still up 17% year-to-date, outperforming the S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Dow, the latest sell-off in global stocks, triggered by mounting unease over AI valuations, has temporarily knocked the wind out of its sails.

Market strategists say the pullback doesn’t erase the bigger story: the FTSE’s sharp, rapid climb from 9,000 to nearly 10,000 in just 119 days, one of the fastest 1,000-point jumps on record, according to Dan Coatsworth of AJ Bell.

And while 10K may be just a round number, Coatsworth argues it would mark a symbolic victory for Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who is preparing to deliver the Autumn Budget on November 26.

The FTSE’s outperformance this year has been fueled by its heavy exposure to gold, utilities, defense, and other value-oriented sectors, making it a safer-looking hedge as AI bubble fears spread through tech stocks globally.

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) bled over half a billion dollars on Tuesday, suffering its worst single-day outflow since launching, a brutal turn for a fund that had once been the market’s shiny crypto trophy. The $523 million pulled marks the fifth straight day of net redemptions, according to Bloomberg data, and adds to the pressure crushing crypto sentiment this month.

Bitcoin is now down nearly 30% from its all-time high in October, having tumbled back to its lowest level since April. On Tuesday, it dipped below a critical support zone, flipping investor sentiment across the 12 U.S. Bitcoin ETFs into the red. Collectively, those funds have seen over $3 billion in outflows this month, and nearly two-thirds of that came from IBIT alone, with $2 billion pulled in November.

IBIT had been the golden child of crypto finance, a spot Bitcoin ETF that raked in nearly $26 billion in inflows this year alone, ballooning to over $72 billion in assets since its blockbuster debut in January 2024. But the recent stretch of consistent withdrawals has soured that narrative, with traders now eyeing the trend as a clear bearish signal.

This post is updated LIVE.

Energy prices are front and center Wednesday, as Russia’s Novatek scrambles to salvage its sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 project by slashing gas cargo prices up to 40% for Chinese buyers, and oil ticks lower after a surprise U.S. stockpile jump.

According to sources speaking to Reuters, Novatek has been offering deep discounts since August, marking down LNG cargoes between 30% and 40% to lure Chinese firms still willing to buy Russian gas despite U.S. and European sanctions. The $21 billion project had been in limbo, unable to move shipments until now. But with China, a key ally of Vladimir Putin, openly opposing Western sanctions, these cut-rate deals are flowing, even as Washington threatens action against buyers.

That puts the Biden administration in a bind. A crackdown on Chinese firms over Russian energy purchases could unravel the fragile truce recently struck in the U.S.–China trade war. One senior energy source told Reuters that enforcing these sanctions might backfire, jeopardizing Washington’s own push to close LNG supply deals with Beijing.

On the oil side, prices slipped modestly, weighed down by bigger-than-expected U.S. crude inventory builds. The American Petroleum Institute said crude stocks rose by 4.45 million barrels last week, with gasoline and distillate inventories climbing by 1.55 million and 577,000 barrels, respectively.

That pulled Brent crude down 0.2% to $64.78, and WTI crude 0.2% lower to $60.65, though both benchmarks are still holding on to gains from earlier this week. Sanctions on Russian oil flows helped keep prices from sliding further… for now.

Markets across Asia-Pacific fell Wednesday, mirroring Wall Street’s drop as the heat around AI valuations kept tech names under pressure.

Semiconductor stocks led the declines, with investors rotating out of overheated names ahead of Nvidia’s earnings later today.

In Japan, the Nikkei 225 slipped 0.2% during volatile trading, dragged early by a sharp selloff in chip-related names. Advantest, a major semiconductor testing gear maker, initially plunged more than 4% before trimming losses to close down 0.88%. Renesas was still deep in the red, trading 4.4% lower.

Over in South Korea, the Kospi dropped 0.54%, while the small-cap Kosdaq slid 0.58%. Index titans Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix pared earlier losses but still finished 0.51% and 0.79% down, respectively.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 moved sideways before closing 0.13% lower, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dropped 0.45%.

The standout loser in Hong Kong was Xiaomi, whose shares plunged more than 4% after the company warned that 2026 smartphone prices will spike due to rising memory chip costs tied to AI hardware demand.

China’s mainland CSI 300 bucked the trend, climbing 0.21%, while India’s Nifty 50 and Sensex opened modestly lower, down 0.16% and 0.14%, respectively, before recovering to post gains later in the day.

Numbers snapshot:

• 🇯🇵 Nikkei 225: 48,696.04 (–0.01%)

• 🇦🇺 ASX 200: 8,458.30 (–0.13%)

• 🇰🇷 Kospi: 3,925.71 (–0.71%)

• 🇭🇰 Hang Seng: 25,812.54 (–0.45%)

• 🇨🇳 Shanghai: 3,938.29 (–0.04%)

• 🇮🇳 Nifty 50: 25,966.75 (+0.22%)

Bitcoin is barely holding above $91,000 today, sitting there like a shaky meter of market nerves as traders brace for Nvidia’s earnings later today.

Gold is nudging higher from last week’s low, acting as the quiet safety valve in the background.

Stock futures were almost frozen Tuesday night as Wall Street extended its tech‑driven losing streak. Dow futures dipped 47 points (–0.1%), while S&P 500 futures slipped 0.2% and the Nasdaq 100 lost 0.3%, setting the stage for what could be a brutal or explosive session depending on how Nvidia lands its numbers.

Tuesday’s trading couldn’t break the slide: the Dow and S&P 500 both posted a fourth straight decline, with the S&P 500 logging its longest losing run since August.

The Nasdaq chalked up its fifth red day in six, underscoring how battered the once‑unstoppable tech momentum has become ahead of the earnings everyone is waiting for.

Most sectors actually managed to end Tuesday higher, but that didn’t matter because the heavyweights dragging the market (Nvidia, Palantir, Microsoft, and AMD) all finished deep in the red.

The Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLK) closed 1.6% lower, cementing technology and consumer discretionary as this month’s biggest losers, while health care continues to outperform the entire field.