Weekly Index Highlights, October 7, 2024

For a quick breakdown of the performance of CFB’s key benchmark indices and reference rates for the period September 30 to October 6, 2024, explore our latest Weekly Index Highlights.

A weakening of large caps in the most recent week, following a spell of gains, left Bitcoin as relative outperformer with a -2.15% slip. Contrast that with the worst weekly underperformer, Ripple (XRP) -14.52%. Interestingly, XRP’s YTD return is now almost identical at -14.05%, underlining perceptions the token may be in the process of escaping a years-long cloud of uncertainty.

The broader snapshot also portrays a near unanimity of losses. Still, it’s worth noting pockets of mild intraweek advances had faded before the cut. Tell-tale relatively mild losses among dog-themed SHIB, -1.55%, WIF, -2.33%, and DOGE, -7.01%, helped minimise the Culture sub-category’s fall to -7.68% on average. But the -14.34% weekly loss by BONK, another meme token, among the deepest in any sub-category, shows differential sentiment isn’t running very deep.

ETH staking rewards may be marginally trending lower over the short term given the weekly return change again edged lower at -0.2%, meaning ETH_SRR’s YTD return closed the week down -7.36%.

The generally weaker tone appears milder, viewed on the more aggregated basis shown by CF Capitalization Series indices. The influence of Bitcoin’s relatively firm week (-2.15%) is again evident in the narrow differential between the CF Ultra Cap 5’s -3.61% weekly decline, and the CF Broad Cap Index (Free Float Market Cap Weight), -3.83%. Note the biggest weekly faller in this series was CF Broad Cap Index (Diversified Weight), losing -5.56%.

Here too, marginal differentials abound, posing the CF Web 3.0 Smart Contract Platforms Index’s relatively buffered -7.05% weekly return as notional at best, especially with series underperformer, the CF Blockchain Infrastructure Index falling only 1.41 percentage points more, with an -8.46% slide.

A second-straight weekly uptick of CME Bitcoin implied volatility, this time +1.76%, brought another incremental curtailment of BVXS’s YTD decline, leaving it to stand at a fall of -20.17%.

The shorter end’s long-standing flattening profile quickened over the most recent week, which notably ended with a benign U.S. monthly jobs report that triggered an advance by Treasury yields. CF BIRC’s 1-week tenor evaporated entirely to show a 0% reading from barely 0.01 of a basis point (bp) the week before. By marginal contrast, the longer end ticked higher, leaving the 5-month tenor to close at approximately 1.5 bp from 0.008% the previous week.

Index data based on CF Benchmarks Settlement Rates, published at 16:00 London Time