The Bitcoin price tilted higher after the latest American retail sales numbers. The BTC rose to the psychological level of $48,000, which was its highest level since September 7th. This rally brought its total market capitalisation to more than $910 billion.
US retail sales data
The US monetary policy tends to have an impact on the price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Besides, the rally that started in 2020 happened at a time when the Federal Reserve lowered its interest rates and launched its biggest quantitative easing program on record. This QE program has seen the central bank boost its balance sheet to more than $8.5 trillion.
The Bitcoin price rose this week after the American government published the relatively weak consumer inflation data. The numbers showed that the country’s headline consumer price index rose by 5.3% in August. This increase was slightly lower than the previous month’s 5.4%. Additionally, the core CPI, which excludes the volatile food and energy products, declined to 4.0%.
On Thursday, the US published strong retail sales. The Bureau of Statistics showed that sales rose by 0.7% in August. This growth led to a year-on-year increase of 13.45%. In the same period, core retail sales rose by 1.8% after falling by 1.0% in July. These numbers defied what Wall Street analysts were expecting. Most of them were expecting the data to show that sales declined sharply in August.
Additional data showed that the American economy is doing well. For example, the Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index jumped from 19.4 to 30.7. This happened as demand for manufactured goods rose in the country.
Therefore, taken together, these numbers show that the American economy is doing relatively well. This means that the Fed will likely adopt a hawkish tone when it meets next week. Such a tone will be bearish for the Bitcoin price.
Bitcoin price forecast
The BTC price has crawled back in the past few days. It has managed to rise from a low of $43,000 to the current $48,120. This price is just a few points below the 23.6% Fibonacci retracement level. It has also moved above the 25-day and 50-day moving averages while the MACD remains above the neutral line.
Therefore, the Bitcoin price will likely keep rising as bulls target the next key level to watch will be $52,000, which is about 10% above the current level.
