Wall Street analyst Thomas Lee, the co-founder and head of research at Fundstrat, says Bitcoin’s recent crash continues to reinforce his “unpopular” theory that BTC has long-term ties to the S&P 500.
Lee thinks Bitcoin suffers when stocks are flat.
The downturn in #bitcoin followed the risk-off selloff in #equities.
– reinforces our ‘unpopular’ opinion bitcoin does not do well in a ‘trendless macro’ environment.
– New highs needed in S&P 500 before $BTC can blast off.
Why? We think crypto is retail and thus, risk on https://t.co/y5Yo5NepPz
— Thomas (Tom) Lee (not drummer) FSInsight.com (@fundstrat) September 25, 2019
Lee says the S&P 500 could soon be headed in a bullish direction, however. In an interview last Friday, Lee told CNBC that past market metrics indicate a “breakout” could be on the horizon.
“I think we’ve been in a nowhere market for the last 20 months and I think people generally think that’s a sign of risk and a top, but historically that’s a precursor to a big upside breakout…
We looked at 120 years of market history when market’s been 20 months flat within three% of the high. It’s happened three times – the average gain over the next two years is 51%.”
Lee initially rolled out his Bitcoin theory earlier this month, telling CNBC that a healthy S&P 500 will be a major catalyst for the next Bitcoin bull run.
“Bitcoin has stalled recently because the macro outlook has stalled. In a world without trend, Bitcoin doesn’t go up. So I think the next big catalyst is a decisive breakout in the equity markets because once equities reach an all-time high, Bitcoin becomes a risk-on asset.
We published a piece today showing our clients that if you look at the last 10 years and take the three or four best years of the S&P, they’ve all coincided with the best years for Bitcoin.
So Bitcoin does best when the S&P is up more than 15%.”
