Bitcoin dips under $80,000 as US producer prices jump the most since 2022

Bitcoin briefly slipped below $80,000 on Thursday after US producer inflation for September came in far hotter than forecast, Cointelegraph reported. That was one day after the consumer price index also surprised to the upside.

The numbers

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), as summarised by Cointelegraph:

• The Producer Price Index (PPI) for final demand rose 6.3% over the 12 months to September. Markets had expected about 5.3%.
• Core PPI came in at 5%, against a forecast of 4.4%.
• The BLS said the monthly rise was the biggest since March 2022. The annual rate was the highest since December 2022.

BTC/USD fell as much as 1.8% on the day to its lowest level since Sept. 18, according to TradingView data, before recovering to about $81,000. Risk assets were already weak after South Korea's KOSPI fell about 7.5% on Thursday in a tech-led sell-off.

Yields went the other way

Economist Mohamed El-Erian called the PPI reading "even more striking" than the CPI data. Hot inflation would normally push yields up, but the US 10-year yield fell almost 3% on the day to its lowest level since Sept. 23.

Former Goldman Sachs FX strategist Robin Brooks has argued that long-term yields have "decoupled" from economic data. In his view, markets now care more about the path of the federal deficit than about individual data releases.

Levels traders are watching

Cointelegraph listed several chart levels that analysts are watching. These are their views, not forecasts from us:

• The 50-week EMA near $78,459 and the 21-week EMA near $76,144. Trader Rekt Capital said a "volatile retest" of these averages would not necessarily break bitcoin's broader uptrend.
• Analyst Aksel Kibar said the latest weekly close, around $83,700, was too weak to count as a breakout. He described a wider range of $60,000–$82,800, with $75,000 as the level that would invalidate the bullish pattern.
• Bitcoin was still trading below the $82,500–$82,800 zone, which has acted as an important support area in recent weeks.

What's next

Markets now go into the next Federal Reserve decision with two hot inflation reports in a row. Long-term holders may also want to compare spot ETFs with buying bitcoin directly.