Daily market data review and trend analysis, produced by PANews.

Macro Market

Fueled by rumors that the US and Iran had reached an agreement on a memorandum of understanding, the three major US stock indexes all rose and hit new closing highs. At the close, the S&P 500 rose 0.58% to 7563.63 points, the Nasdaq rose 0.91% to 26917.47 points, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.05% to 50668.97 points. Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq recorded their sixth consecutive day of gains.

Weak macroeconomic data fueled expectations of interest rate cuts, with US April PCE inflation falling short of expectations and Q1 GDP growth revised down to 1.6%. The 10-year Treasury yield subsequently declined to 4.45%, and the 30-year yield fell below 5%. Deutsche Bank economist Matthew Luzzetti stated that the Fed's rate hike response function has not yet been triggered, allowing more time for inflation to fall. Meanwhile, Scott Helfstein, head of ETF strategy at Global X, pointed out that market interest rate expectations have undergone a complete 180-degree turn, and investors can refocus on fundamentals.

The Asia-Pacific market was also in high spirits, with Japan's Nikkei 225 index surging 2.7% to a new record high. Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama made a tough statement, saying that the authorities were ready to take bold action against currency speculation at any time.

South Korea's KOSPI index also surged over 3% to a record high , prompting the Bank of Korea to maintain its benchmark interest rate at 2.5%. Bank of Korea Governor Shin Hyun-song warned that bonuses paid by companies like Samsung could trigger demand expansion, potentially leading to a need for interest rate hikes at the appropriate time.

AI and the Stock Market

The tech feast on Wall Street continues, but its internal structure is undergoing dramatic divergence. A global frenzy for leveraged ETFs has swept the globe, with assets doubling to over $60 billion in just a month and a half. Funds are pouring from traditional U.S. mega-cap tech stocks into the global AI and memory chip sectors. Goldman Sachs points out that the divergence between large-cap tech stocks and unprofitable tech stocks has reached a near five-year high for a single day.

The world's largest single-stock leveraged ETF has changed hands to a product offering double the long exposure to SK Hynix . Meanwhile, newly listed SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics single-stock ETFs in South Korea attracted over $2 billion in just two days. Boosted by the delivery of the first batch of 12-layer HBM4E samples, Samsung Electronics' stock price surged over 5%, SK Hynix followed suit, and SoftBank also jumped over 6% on expectations of OpenAI initiatives.

AI-related stocks performed strongly in the market. Snowflake , the world's largest cloud-native data warehouse platform, surged 36.48% after announcing a $6 billion agreement with Amazon and releasing impressive earnings for its AI data cloud business. Dell Technologies jumped nearly 40% in after-hours trading, reporting a 757% year-over-year increase in AI server revenue and projecting $60 billion in revenue for the current fiscal year. Microsoft also rose over 3% amid rumors of releasing a new coding model next week, while Oracle, Figma, and other tech stocks also saw significant gains.

Meanwhile, IBM announced it will invest tens of billions of dollars over the next five years to accelerate its quantum computing efforts, aiming to build the world's first large-scale quantum computer capable of stably performing complex computational tasks by 2029. Drone-related stocks also surged across the board, with Red Cat Holdings jumping 32.61%, Unusual Machines soaring 57.2%, and AeroVironment rising 18.26%, driven by reports that the Trump administration plans to provide funding to domestic drone companies.

In response to this frenzy, Goldman Sachs trader Chris Lucas warned that such highly concentrated leveraged exposure carries the deadly risk of "disruptive liquidation." Goldman Sachs' strategy team, Jacqueline Du and Peter Sheren, explicitly stated that the AI investment narrative is shifting from infrastructure to the application layer, with humanoid robots representing the next core monetization frontier . Benefiting from the 21% valuation discount of Asia-Pacific robotics stocks compared to their US counterparts, funds are accelerating their rotation into the Asia-Pacific ecosystem. However, large-scale commercialization of this early-cycle opportunity still requires patience until 2027-2029.

Bitcoin price

With less than three days left in May, Bitcoin is likely to close the month with a negative candle. Bitcoin opened May at $76,344 and is currently capped by the 30-day exponential moving average (EMA 30). To close the month positive, Bitcoin needs to rise at least 3.5% in the remaining three days.

With 2026 nearly halfway through, Bitcoin's performance has been particularly lackluster, with a year-to-date return of only -16.5%. In contrast, the S&P 500 has returned 10.49%, and the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) has recorded an annual return of over 100%. Yesterday, Bitcoin briefly dipped below its 100-day moving average ($73,000) on the daily chart and is currently attempting to stabilize near that level.

Market sentiment was further dampened by on-chain data. The spot Bitcoin ETF has seen outflows for nine consecutive trading days, totaling $2.843 billion, an average daily outflow of $320 million. Strategy transferred 411.48 Bitcoins (worth over $30 million) to Coinbase Prime, and Polymarket's prediction of an 84% probability of them selling Bitcoin by the end of the year has surged. In today's upcoming $6 billion monthly options settlement, Bitcoin's biggest pain point is at $75,000, but call options at $82,000 are also seeing heavy betting.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasury Department plans to withdraw approximately $150 billion in liquidity from the financial system between May 28 and June 5 through operations such as short-term Treasury bills and coupon settlements. Michael Kramer, founder of Mott Capital, pointed out that Bitcoin is extremely sensitive to changes in liquidity, and reduced liquidity could further exacerbate selling pressure on Bitcoin.

Bearish view

Core logic: Weak institutional demand and a depletion of on-chain liquidity are breaking down the market's reservoir, while macro-geopolitical risks further amplify Bitcoin's vulnerability as a risk asset.

CryptoQuant: Due to a severe lack of new buyers, whale and institutional accumulation has stalled. The record supply of 15.8 million long-term holders is not a bullish signal, but rather exposes the reality of weak short-term demand and fragile liquidity.
FxPro analysts: Bitcoin has fallen below the 50-day moving average, and the 200-day moving average is sloping downwards, indicating that the long-term bull market has not yet arrived.
Swissblock: Bitcoin has slipped into "high-risk zone" under the double whammy of selling pressure and waning ETF buying.
Michaël van de Poppe: If the support level of $72,000 to $74,000 is breached, Bitcoin will crash to new lows.
EliZ: $72,000 is key to a warming trend on the daily chart; a break below this level would lead to new lows.
Kaz: After one last upward trap, the price is expected to begin its final downward wave toward below $60,000.

bullish view

Core logic: Retail investors are actively buying at key support levels, and technical oversold conditions combined with potential macroeconomic benefits could ignite a strong rebound at any time.

Hyblock analyst: The proportion of retail long accounts has risen to over 64%. Historical data shows that going long under these circumstances has an 88% probability of yielding positive returns after 7 days.
Ali Charts: Bitcoin has touched a major structural support zone of $71,300 to $73,000. If the bulls successfully defend it, the price could return to $77,000 or even $79,500.
Astronomer: Maintaining a bullish bias, the $72,700 to $73,000 range is an excellent buy zone, with a potential rebound to the highs of the $75,000 or even $79,000 range.
LP: The bottom liquidity has been swept away, and the market will follow the liquidity upward, which is very likely to hunt down a large number of short positions around $80,000.

Ethereum price quotes

Ethereum's performance has become even more sluggish, with its price briefly falling below the $2,000 mark, and down over 30% year-to-date. Spot ETFs have seen net outflows for 13 consecutive days, with a cumulative loss of $695 million. Furthermore, the options market has seen unusually large amounts of bearish buying (with contract volumes at $1,800 and $1,900 reaching five times normal levels). 10x Research warns that cheap does not necessarily equate to a buying opportunity.

In this liquidity crisis, some chose to liquidate their Ethereum holdings, while others chose to continue holding their ETH through HODL. David Hoffman, founder of Bankless, stated that he had liquidated his ETH holdings, believing that the narrative of "ETH as currency" has ended and it is unlikely to receive a revaluation from the market. The founder of Hash Global also announced that he had liquidated his holdings, stating that while it could alleviate regulatory issues, it could not provide ETH with a currency premium similar to Bitcoin's.

Amidst widespread pessimism, numerous key opinion leaders (KOLs) have voiced their support for Ethereum. Among them, Bit Digital invested $20 million to increase its ETH holdings at an average price of $2,334 per ETH. Despite currently experiencing a paper loss of approximately $3 million, CEO Sam Tabar remains optimistic about Ethereum's long-term value. He believes that ETH's core strength lies in its position as a leading global programmable settlement layer, rather than its monetary attributes; the real catalyst is institutional demand.

Furthermore, Standard Chartered analysts reiterated their optimistic outlook on ETH, predicting a price of $4,000 by the end of the year and potentially reaching $40,000 by 2030. They pointed out that the current price significantly undervalues Ethereum's on-chain transaction volume and the rapid growth potential of the DeFi ecosystem, particularly given that stablecoins already account for 33% of its transactions, indicating substantial future appreciation potential.

Key data (as of 13:00 HKT on May 29)

(Data source: Coinank, Upbit, SoSoValue, CryptoBubbles)

Bitcoin ETF: -$229 million, marking the 9th consecutive day of net outflows.
Ethereum ETF: -$121 million, marking the 13th consecutive day of net outflows.
Fear of Greed Index: 23 (Fear)
Upbit 24-hour trading volume rankings: XLM, XRP, BTC, ETH, PRL
Sector Performance: The crypto market fluctuated downwards, with only the DeFi sector showing relative resilience.

24-hour liquidation data: A total of 69,619 people worldwide were liquidated, with a total liquidation amount of $192 million, including $40.67 million in BTC liquidations, $32.28 million in ETH liquidations, and $6.44 million in ZEC liquidations.

Today's Outlook

Approximately $6.25 billion worth of Bitcoin options will expire on May 29.
CME Group plans to launch AVAX and Sui futures contracts on May 4, and will support 24/7 trading starting May 29.
Tapp Exchange has announced it will cease operations, and its front-end will be taken offline on May 31.
Optimism will cease support for op-geth and op-program on May 31.
Kamino (KMNO) will unlock approximately 229 million tokens, worth about $4.6 million, on May 30.
Gunz (GUN) will unlock approximately 354 million tokens, worth about $4.2 million, on May 31.

The top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization with the largest gains today are: Stellar up 19.8%, Humanity up 13.5%, DeXe up 12.6%, Algorand up 12.3%, and Hedera up 11.5%.

A whale is suspected of withdrawing 4,303 ETH (approximately $8.67 million) from Kraken through three new wallets.

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