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(Bloomberg) — Twitter Inc. owner Elon Musk tweeted out an upbeat message saying the company beat its all-time high in usage late Thursday, on a day when many employees decided to leave the company.

It was the second time in a week that the social network set a record, according to Musk, who said it hit its highest-ever number of daily active users on Nov. 11. In another message posted this week, the billionaire — who hasn’t given himself a specific job title at Twitter after adopting “chief Twit” and “complaint hotline operator” briefly — posted a chart showing user numbers rising since his acquisition. Musk has long disputed the accuracy of Twitter’s internal metrics, saying they are unreliable due to an overabundance of fake or bot accounts.

Earlier on Thursday, Twitter decided to abruptly shut its offices after many employees reacted negatively to Musk’s ultimatum of either staying for a new “hardcore” work environment or leaving with three months’ severance. So many employees decided to take severance that it created a cloud of confusion over which people should still have access to company property, Bloomberg News reported.

Musk ‘Hardcore’ Ultimatum Spurs Exodus, With Twitter at Risk

Uncertainty hangs over Twitter’s ability to continue normal operations after the company dismissed its executive team and laid off half the workforce in Musk’s first few days in charge. The new leader has since reversed several decisions he’s made, including recalling some laid-off staff who were working on features he wanted to add. Musk has also equivocated about Twitter’s “Official” label attached to accounts of recognized public entities or companies. His signature $8 Blue Verified subscription offering has been delayed to Nov. 29 “to make sure that it is rock solid,” Musk said.

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(Bloomberg) — European equity futures edged higher and Asian stocks pared gains after Chinese technology shares came off their intraday highs.

Hong Kong’s benchmark erased all its advance to trade slightly lower while contracts for US equities were flat. Investors are awaiting results of the quarterly index reshuffling later Friday for Hong Kong’s benchmark gauge. 

Treasury yields steadied after the previous day’s jump when St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said policymakers should increase interest rates to at least 5% to 5.25% to curb inflation. He also warned of further financial stress ahead. 

The dollar steadied. Oil was poised for a weekly loss as concerns over a worsening demand outlook filtered through the crude market.

With inflation only starting to ease and a gauge of US retail sales increasing at the fastest pace in eight months, Fed speakers in recent days have emphasized that they need to go further to extinguish prices pressures. Bullard’s comments came a day after San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly said a pause in rate hikes was “off the table.” Their hawkish tone was echoed by Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari on Thursday afternoon.

“The market believes that inflation is on the down trend. We also believe that, but the fact of inflation having peaked is not a reason for the Fed to turn and cut rates,” Paul Christopher, head of global market strategy at Wells Fargo Investment Institute, said on Bloomberg Radio. “That’s the fundamental disconnect that still exists between the Fed and the market.”

On Thursday, fresh data showing weekly jobless claims came in below the forecast further underscored the strength of the labor market. US mortgage rates posting their biggest weekly decline since 1981 briefly improved sentiment, even though Freddie Mac’s chief economist said there’s a long road ahead for the housing market.

If the Fed keeps increasing at the current pace, “by the time they get the information that they’ve been successful in slowing the economy and slowing inflation, it might be too late,” Ellen Hazen, chief market strategist at F.L.Putnam Investment Management, said on Bloomberg Television. “It’s just too soon to know exactly how this is going to play through the economy and that’s the biggest risk.”

In Japan, inflation hit its fastest clip in 40 years in October. The outcome puts the Bank of Japan in an even more awkward position as it tries to explain the need to stick with monetary stimulus to pursue stable price growth.

Elsewhere, gold edged higher. Bitcoin was on course for a weekly gain even as the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX empire continues to rattle the crypto market.

Key events this week:

• US Conference Board leading index, existing home sales, Friday

Some of the main moves in markets:

Stocks

• S&P 500 futures fell 0.2% as of 6:42 a.m. in London. The S&P 500 fell 0.3%
• Nasdaq 100 futures were little changed. The Nasdaq 100 fell 0.2%
• Japan’s Topix index was little changed
• South Korea’s Kospi index was little changed
• Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 0.5%
• China’s Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.4%
• Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index rose 0.2%
• Euro Stoxx 50 futures rose 0.6%

Currencies

• The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed
• The euro was little changed at $1.0365
• The Japanese yen rose 0.2% to 139.94 per dollar
• The offshore yuan rose 0.1% to 7.1394 per dollar

Cryptocurrencies

• Bitcoin rose 0.5% to $16,770.57
• Ether rose 0.8% to $1,215.61

Bonds

• The yield on 10-year Treasuries declined two basis points to 3.75%
• Australia’s 10-year yield was little changed at 3.61%

Commodities

• West Texas Intermediate crude rose 0.5% to $82.08 a barrel
• Spot gold rose 0.2% to $1,763.36 an ounce

This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.

–With assistance from Rheaa Rao.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

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(Bloomberg) — ASML Holding NV, China Tourism Group Duty Free Corp., Nike Inc. and cash were among recommendations pitched by investors at the annual Sohn Australia conference on Friday.

Below is a summary by sector of what companies and assets were tipped at the event in Hobart, Tasmania, and by who, according to reports in the Australian Financial Review and The Australian.

Cash

Cash is the best asset in the current rising interest rate environment, said Bill Browder, co-founder of hedge fund Hermitage Capital LLP. “Yielding cash while waiting for dry powder to buy things when they get really cheap” is a sound strategy, Browder said, according to the Australian Financial Review.

He joins a number of investors, including GIC Pte.’s Jeffrey Jaensubhakij and AustralianSuper Pty Ltd.’s Mark Delaney, who have said recently that they’ve built up cash piles that will enable them to react quickly when an investment thesis aligns.

Read: Investment Giants With $2.3 Trillion Bet on More Market Turmoil

Tech

Nick Griffin, chief investment officer of Munro Investment Holdings Pty Ltd., tipped Dutch semiconductor manufacturing equipment maker ASML on expectations that its earnings should accelerate, according to The Australian.

The stock has fallen in line with peers, but should see exponentially more growth in the future, he said. ASML shares are down about 20% this year, dragged by waning global demand for PC-related chips as customers shun big-ticket purchases.

Eminence Capital LP’s chief executive officer Ricky Sandler pitched software monitoring company New Relic Inc., saying the firm is misperceived as a market share loser because of its transition to a new product platform over the last two years, the AFR reported. Shares of the Nasdaq-listed company have lost half of their value this year.

Tim Carleton, portfolio manager at Auscap Asset Management Ltd., said Sydney-listed Carsales.com Ltd.’s revenue exposure to international markets presents an opportunity, according to the AFR. He argued that the online automotive classifieds business isn’t a tech stock, but has been sold off like one. Shares erased losses on Friday after the nod. The stock has retreated 11% this year.

FACT Capital LP founder Joyce Meng picked Keywords Studios Plc, calling it the “picks and shovels” of the video game industry, The Australian reported. She sees a 72% upside to the stock, using conservative cost of capital. 

Consumer

Claremont Global’s Bob Desmond gave the nod to Nike. The sportswear brand is “increasingly taking control of its distribution and turning into a technology power,” he said, according to the AFR.

Perpetual Investment Management Ltd. portfolio manager Anthony Aboud touted French lottery firm La Francaise des Jeux SAEM, The Australian said. The company’s appeal lies in the growth of its online business, which has seen sales jump from 5% to 11% since its initial public offering.

Tribeca Investment Partners Pty Ltd. portfolio manager Jun Bei Liu selected CTG Duty Free, anticipating that its compounded growth will top 40% per annum over the next three years.

“They want to go to Europe, the US, wherever the Chinese tourist is going — it is going to collect a whole lot of luxury brands to make them exclusive,” she said, the AFR reported.

Materials

Regal Funds Management Pty Ltd.’s Tim Elliott chose Champion Iron Ltd., saying it needs to rise 43% to trade in line with iron ore rivals like Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. and Rio Tinto Group on a one-year, forward-consensus Ebitda. He also highlighted some drivers of upside value that could double its share price without assuming an increase in the iron ore price.

The stock is “the most under-appreciated and exciting play on decarbonization that’s completely under the radar,” he said, the AFR reported.

Champion Iron’s Sydney-listed shares closed up 1.2% after the pick. It also rose as iron ore headed for a third weekly advance after Chinese property policies boosted demand optimism.

Health

Cooper Investors Pty Ltd. Chief Investment Officer Peter Cooper named European lab testing service Eurofins Scientific SE as his top stock recommendation. He said the volumes are rising 5% every year in the testing industry and “one of the attributes of the service is it’s really cheap,” The Australian reported.

(Updates with additional speakers, context throughout)

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(Bloomberg) — India launched its first rocket developed by a startup into space on Friday, with the aim of testing the company’s technology that will be used to design three orbital vehicles. 

The Vikram-S rocket, developed by Hyderabad-based Skyroot Aerospace, took off at 11:30 a.m. local time from Sriharikota, an island near Chennai in southeastern India. The rocket reached an altitude of 89.5 kilometers (56 miles) and all systems worked as planned, Pawan Goenka, head of an industry space body said.

“It’s a major step forward to India developing its own space ecosystem and emerging as a front-line nation in space,” Space Minister Jitendra Singh said.

Built in just two years, the sub-orbital validated the pressure, temperature and vibration in Skyroot’s orbital vehicles, with the first of the series, Vikram I, scheduled to launch next year. It carried a payload from two Indian aerospace startups and a non-profit space research laboratory in Armenia. 

Farming out missions to private companies could help India’s push into space exploration. The country plans a moon landing by July after its previous attempt in 2019 failed. India will launch a rover to analyze crust samples for signs of water and helium-3. The isotope is limited on Earth, but so abundant on the moon that it could meet global energy demands for 250 years if harnessed.

India is also working on its $1.4 billion Gaganyaan mission, the country’s first manned space exploration.

Skyroot, founded by former Indian Space Research Organisation scientists, has attracted investment worth 5 billion rupees ($61 million) from backers including Greenko Group founders and Sherpalo Ventures, started by Ram Shriram, a founding board member of Google.  

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(Bloomberg) — Telefonica SA has announced widespread price increases in Spain in an effort to boost revenue after years of stagnant sales.

The Madrid-based carrier plans to notify clients “immediately” about “price updates across all products,” Chief Operating Officer Ángel Vilá said Thursday at the Morgan Stanley TMT conference in Barcelona. “I can confirm that we are moving to tariff upgrades.” 

The company will raise prices by an average 6.8% for all clients of its Movistar brand, it said in a subsequent statement. Clients will be notified by letters in the next days and increases will start in January. The company is making use of a contractual clauses that allows price increases due to higher costs affecting “coverage, quality of the network or characteristics of service provided.”

Bloomberg News reported last week that Telefonica was preparing to increase prices.

Telefonica wants to charge more for its services to counter a surge in Spanish inflation, which reached a four-decade high this summer. The carrier had previously eschewed raising prices without offering added services, such as bigger data allowances.

Telecom operators in Spain, one of Europe’s most competitive markets, don’t automatically index contracts to inflation as is done in many other European nations. However, soaring prices are pushing some companies to reconsider, with Vodafone Group Plc announcing a plan in September to link local tariffs to inflation. 

Telefonica’s revenues have stagnated in Spain since 2015.  

–With assistance from Rodrigo Orihuela.

(Updates with amount of increase in headline, third and fourth paragraphs)

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(Bloomberg) — Democratic lawmakers who received millions of dollars in campaign donations from Sam Bankman-Fried say they will be ready to grill the former FTX CEO about the exchange’s collapse.

Liquidators appointed by a Bahamian court to take over FTX Digital Markets Ltd.’s affairs said there’s “significant” concern that FTX management lacked authority to put the crypto businesses into bankruptcy in the US.

The embattled cryptocurrency mogul and two other top FTX executives received massive loans from affiliated trading arm, Alameda Research. Advisers overseeing the bankruptcy of FTX Group are struggling to locate the company’s cash and crypto, citing poor internal controls and record keeping. 

Key stories and developments:

• Flash Boys Exchange IEX Wants New Crypto Path After FTX Blowup
• Ontario Teachers Writes Off FTX Stake, Citing Potential Fraud
• Here Are the Wildest Parts of the New FTX Bankruptcy Filing
• FTX Offers a Master Class in Crypto Market’s Flaws: Editorial
• Odd Lots: Understanding the Collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s Crypto Empire

(Time references are New York unless otherwise stated.)

Fintechs Still Pushing Crypto, Distance Themselves From FTX (1:00 p.m. HK)

FTX’s bankruptcy filing last week is the latest headwind for fintech companies that have grown rapidly in tandem with the surge in digital asset trading. 

Revolut, a finance app based in London, told users this week it did not have “material exposures” to FTX but was monitoring the situation. “This is a good reminder that crypto is very volatile: the value does go down, as well as up,” it said in an email. Crypto has already shrunk from about 35% of Revolut’s revenue last year to less than 5% this year.

Block Inc.’s Cash App, which allows consumers to transfer money or buy stocks and cryptocurrencies, said in a statement it was “Bitcoin-first” and committed to a “truly” decentralized payments system “not controlled by any person, bank, country, or corporation.” 

Bitcoin Heads for a Weekly Gain (11:50 a.m. HK)

Bitcoin is up some 3% this week, topping global stocks, while a gauge of the leading 100 virtual coins has added about 0.5%. That compares with Bitcoin’s 23% slide last week as FTX collapsed.

Crypto historians might argue the counterintuitive Bitcoin performance will continue. Since a low in 2018, Bitcoin has posted a weekly loss of at least 20% six times apart from the recent slide. The token jumped almost 9% on average over the subsequent month, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Bahamas Regulator Takes Control of FTX Assets (8:00 a.m. HK)

The Bahamas Securities Commission said in a statement it directed the transfer of all digital assets of FTX Digital Markets to a wallet that the commission controls for safekeeping.

“Urgent interim regulatory action was necessary to protect the interests of clients and creditors of FDM,” it said, adding that its understanding is that FDM is not a party to US Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. It said it would engage with regulators and authorities in multiple jurisdictions.

Ontario Teachers Writes Off FTX Stake (7:10 a.m. HK)

The pension plan said it will write down its stake in FTX to zero, taking a $95 million loss barely a year after making its first investment.

Teachers said the writedown will have only a “limited impact” because it’s less than 0.05% of the pension fund. “However, we are disappointed with the outcome of this investment, take all losses seriously and will use this experience to further strengthen our approach,” the fund said in a statement Thursday. 

Bankman-Fried-Backed Lawmakers Ready To Grill Former CEO (5:01)

Lawmakers who received millions of dollars of campaign donations from Sam Bankman-Fried could soon get something else from the former FTX chief executive officer: testimony under oath. 

Recipients of those political contributions say they’re prepared to grill Bankman-Fried about why his crypto exchange suddenly crashed, potentially causing billions of dollars in losses for millions of FTX account holders. Before the collapse, he donated tens of millions of dollars from his crypto-empire fortune to benefit Democrats, making him the second-largest donor to the party this election.

FTX’s ‘Zombie’ Token Still Has Value (3:34 p.m.)

A cryptocurrency whose sponsor went belly up, with no obvious use and a sordid role in a complicated deception? And still there’s about $500 million of the tokens sloshing around on digital trading platforms.

That’s the FTT token from the now-bankrupt exchange FTX, whose demise has cast a pall on the crypto space that industry participant say could take years to be lifted. The token reached a high of nearly $85 in September of last year, and though it’s seen its price drop roughly 98% since then, it still sports an eye-popping hypothetical market value on different exchanges and platforms. 

Liquidators Concerned That FTX Had No Authority to File Bankruptcy (1:07 p.m.)

Liquidators, appointed by a Bahamian court to take over FTX Digital Markets Ltd.’s affairs said they have “significant” concern that FTX management, led by Sam Bankman-Fried, lacked authority to put the crypto businesses into bankruptcy in the US.

More than 100 FTX-related entities filed for Chapter 11 in the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware after insolvency proceedings for Bahamas-based FTX Digital began on the island on Nov. 10.

Bankman-Fried Received $1 Billion Loan (11:39 a.m.)

FTX co-founder Samuel Bankman-Fried, one of his related companies, and two other top executives at the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange received massive loans from affiliated trading arm, Alameda Research, according to a bankruptcy court filing Thursday.

Alameda’s receivables included $4.1 billion in combined loans to “related parties,” according to a footnote in a document filed by John J. Ray III, who was appointed to oversee FTX as its chief executive officer during the proceedings. That includes $1 billion to Bankman-Fried, $2.3 billion to Paper Bird Inc., an entity majority owned by Bankman-Fried, $543 million to Nishad Singh, head of engineering at FTX, and $55 million to Ryan Salame, head of FTX Digital Markets. 

Democratic Senators Want Answers (11:14 a.m.)

Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Dick Durbin seek information from FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried on FTX’s collapse, in a letter to Bankman-Fried and the crypto exchange’s newly appointed CEO John Jay Ray III.

New FTX CEO Can’t Locate Company’s Cash, Crypto (9:29 a.m.)

Advisers now overseeing the carcass of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX Group are struggling to locate the company’s cash and crypto, citing poor internal controls and record keeping. 

“Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information,” John J. Ray III, the group’s new chief executive officer who formerly oversaw the liquidation of Enron Corp., said in a sworn declaration submitted in bankruptcy court. 

FTX Lawyers Accuse Bankman-Fried of Undermining Bankruptcy (8:39 a.m.)

Embattled cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried is undermining efforts to reorganize his crumbling empire with “incessant and disruptive tweeting” that appears aimed at moving assets away from the control of a US court in favor of one in the Bahamas, US lawyers for the bankrupt crypto platform FTX said in a court filing.

FTX, which is now under the control of John J. Ray III — a restructuring lawyer who oversaw the liquidation of Enron — asked a federal judge in Wilmington, Delaware, to transfer a competing bankruptcy case filed in New York by Bahamian liquidators to Delaware.

–With assistance from Amanda Fung and Dara Doyle.

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(Bloomberg) — Digital finance companies are trying to reassure customers about their cryptocurrency offerings after the implosion of crypto exchange FTX. 

Revolut Ltd., a finance app based in London, told users this week it did not have “material exposures” to FTX but was monitoring the situation. “This is a good reminder that crypto is very volatile: the value does go down, as well as up,” it said in an email. “So, remember to only invest what you can afford to lose.”

Last year, FTX Chief Executive Officer Sam Bankman-Fried tweeted that users could transfer money in fiat currencies between his exchange and Revolut. 

However, a Revolut spokesperson said the company does not have any direct exposure to FTX.com or its associated trading house, Alameda Research. Revolut has very little indirect exposure and does not facilitate trading in the digital currency that FTX created, known as FTT, according to an emailed statement.  

FTX’s bankruptcy filing last week has rocked the crypto markets and caught the attention of regulators globally. It’s also the latest headwind for fintech companies that have grown rapidly in tandem with the surge in digital asset trading. 

For Revolut, crypto has already shrunk from about 35% of its revenue last year to less than 5% this year, suffering as the Bitcoin market lost most of its value. CEO Nik Storonsky remains committed to expanding in the space, this year gaining permission from UK regulators to operate a crypto business and enabling users to pay for any purchase in digital currencies.

It’s a similar story for Block Inc.’s Cash App, which allows consumers to transfer money or buy stocks and cryptocurrencies. The San Francisco-based company, formerly known as Square, said in a statement it was “Bitcoin-first” and committed to a “truly” decentralized payments system “not controlled by any person, bank, country, or corporation.” 

“We do not offer any crypto lending products, or futures trading, options, or other derivatives,” Block said in the statement.

Online trading firm IG Group Holdings Plc confirmed it never had a trading or custodial relationship with FTX or any of its affiliates. In a series of tweets, Robinhood Markets Inc. Chief Executive Officer Vlad Tenev said his firm had no direct exposure to FTX and customers were turning to his trading app in a “flight to safety.”

Public, the New York-based investing platform that offers over 25 cryptocurrencies, is sending a note to its members this week that will say it does not have “any direct exposure” to FTX, Alameda or FTT.

Stephen Sikes, Public’s chief operating officer, said customers never had access to the FTT token on their platform, adding it was not broadly listed by firms in the US. He said it was the firm’s responsibility to make clear to its members that the “crypto industry is a viable one” and that “not every not every participant can be painted with the same broad brush.” 

‘Fairly Scary’

Fintechs that steered clear of the crypto wave also have concerns about the FTX blowup. 

Klarna Chief Executive Officer Sebastian Siemiatkowski, who has previously criticized the crypto industry, described the situation as “fairly scary” in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Monday. He raised fears that FTX’s collapse may encourage regulation that obstructs new firms from competing against traditional lenders “to the disadvantage of consumers.”

FTX’s failure is an unsettling but necessary part of the crypto market growing up, according to Jeff Tijssen, Bain & Company’s global head of fintech. 

“It has become a bit of a wild west, and the fact that businesses can operate out of the Bahamas without any decent degree of regulatory oversight is a big part of the issue,” he said. 

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(Bloomberg) — Indonesia’s largest internet company GoTo Group will cut 1,300 jobs as it seeks to curtail expenses and assuage investor concerns over mounting losses.

The cuts amount to about 12% of the workforce, the company said in a statement Friday. The ride-hailing, e-commerce and fintech company will begin notifying affected employees right away.

GoTo joins tech giants from Apple Inc. to Meta Plaform Inc. in trimming staff or slowing hiring as companies curtail ambitions and brace for tough times ahead. Job cuts in the industry are nearing levels seen in the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, as tech companies across the globe confront the effects of a deteriorating economic climate and a heightened investor focus on profitability. Sea Ltd., Southeast Asia’s largest tech company, cut about 7,000 jobs in the past six months, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Formed through a merger of ride-hailing provider Gojek and e-commerce firm Tokopedia, the company went public in early 2022 in one of the year’s biggest initial public offerings and its shares have lost almost 40% since. GoTo’s statement on the job cuts confirms an earlier Bloomberg News report.

The plan underscores an effort to trim operating expenses as the company prepares to unveil quarterly results on Nov. 21. In August, it reported its second-quarter adjusted loss before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization widened to 4.14 trillion rupiah ($264 million) from a pro-forma loss of 3.9 trillion rupiah a year earlier.

The company said “it must accelerate its progress towards becoming a truly sustainable and financially independent business, centered on its core offerings of on-demand, e-commerce and financial technology services.”

GoTo and its publicly traded peers Sea and Grab Holdings Ltd. — all of which are loss-making — have seen valuations drop as they navigate an economic slowdown, rising interest rates and accelerating inflation. GoTo executives have said they are trying to balance spending on growth with its effort to reach profitability.

–With assistance from Yoolim Lee and Fathiya Dahrul.

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(Bloomberg) — There can be little doubt that crypto investors expect more firms to blow up in the treacherous wreckage of the wipeout at FTX. Their confounding response has been to drive up Bitcoin this week.

The token is up some 3% over the period, topping global stocks, while a gauge of the leading 100 virtual coins has added about 1%. That compares with Bitcoin’s 23% slide last week as Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX empire collapsed.

To recap the backdrop: FTX’s chaotic bankruptcy left even the man who liquidated Enron Corp. flabbergasted and put the likes of crypto lender BlockFi Inc. on the cusp of their own Chapter 11 filings. An industry recovery fund proposed by Binance Holdings Ltd. remains long on hope and short on details.

“Everyone is trying to figure out” why crypto markets have been resilient in the past few days despite it all, said John Toro, head of trading at digital-asset exchange Independent Reserve. “But the counterparty risk will take a couple of months yet to play out in markets.”

Crypto historians might argue the counterintuitive Bitcoin performance will continue. Since a low in 2018, Bitcoin has posted a weekly loss of at least 20% six times apart from the recent slide. The token jumped almost 9% on average over the subsequent month, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Other parts of the cryptoverse signal caution. For instance, part of the Bitcoin futures curve is in backwardation, where the spot price is above the futures price. That can be taken to indicate bets on declines in the world’s largest digital asset. An index of expected volatility in Bitcoin has also jumped.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. strategists led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou also pointed to a $25 billion outflow from crypto since May due to redemptions of stablecoins, which can be viewed as akin to cash in the digital-asset ecosystem.

The team wrote in a note that “it would be difficult here to imagine a sustained recovery in crypto prices without the shrinkage” stopping.

Why Bitcoin isn’t “lower than current levels is a big question,” Chris Weston, head of research at Pepperstone Group Ltd., said in an online video presentation alongside Blake Morrow, co-founder of ForexAnalytix.

Morrow said he anticipates Bitcoin will drop to between $5,000 and $10,000 before the token bottoms out.

Bitcoin has slumped more than 60% this year, hammered by rapidly tightening monetary policy and a series of blowups at crypto outfits. The token climbed a little more than 1% to almost $17,000 as of 11:45 a.m. in Singapore.

–With assistance from Joanna Ossinger.

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(Bloomberg) — Asian equities rose, with shares in Hong Kong leading gains as investors grew more optimistic about a further easing in China’s Covid restrictions.

Chinese tech firms listed in Hong Kong jumped as much as 4.4% while the MSCI Asia Pacific Index headed for a third weekly gain. Goldman Sachs strategists upgraded Hong Kong stocks to market-weight on bets for a reopening of China’s economy.

China also reduced the amount of its short-term cash injections to the banking system, as the nation’s government bond market steadied following this week’s steep losses. 

Stocks edged higher in Japan, Australia as well as South Korea, suggesting little reaction to news that North Korea had launched a missile.

Treasury yields held gains across the curve during morning trading in Asia after the previous day’s jump when St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said policymakers should increase interest rates to at least 5% to 5.25% to curb inflation. He also warned of further financial stress ahead. Bond yields in Australia and New Zealand followed suit.

The dollar slipped after rallying on Thursday. Oil was poised for a weekly loss as concerns over a worsening demand outlook filtered through the crude market.

With inflation only starting to ease and a gauge of US retail sales increasing at the fastest pace in eight months, Fed speakers in recent days have emphasized that they need to go further to extinguish prices pressures. Bullard’s comments came a day after San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly said a pause in rate hikes was “off the table.” Their hawkish tone was echoed by Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari on Thursday afternoon.

“The market believes that inflation is on the down trend. We also believe that, but the fact of inflation having peaked is not a reason for the Fed to turn and cut rates,” Paul Christopher, head of global market strategy at Wells Fargo Investment Institute, said on Bloomberg Radio. “That’s the fundamental disconnect that still exists between the Fed and the market.”

On Thursday, fresh data showing weekly jobless claims came in below the forecast further underscored the strength of the labor market. US mortgage rates posting their biggest weekly decline since 1981 briefly improved sentiment, even though Freddie Mac’s chief economist said there’s a long road ahead for the housing market.

If the Fed keeps increasing at the current pace, “by the time they get the information that they’ve been successful in slowing the economy and slowing inflation, it might be too late,” Ellen Hazen, chief market strategist at F.L.Putnam Investment Management, said on Bloomberg Television. “It’s just too soon to know exactly how this is going to play through the economy and that’s the biggest risk.”

Read More: Bullard Sets Tone for Fed Officials Signaling Hikes Will Roll On

In Japan, inflation hit its fastest clip in 40 years in October. The outcome puts the Bank of Japan in an even more awkward position as it tries to explain the need to stick with monetary stimulus to pursue stable price growth.

Key events this week:

• US Conference Board leading index, existing home sales, Friday

Some of the main moves in markets:

Stocks

• S&P 500 futures were little changed as of 12:04 p.m. in Tokyo. The S&P 500 fell 0.3%
• Nasdaq 100 futures rose 0.2%. The Nasdaq 100 fell 0.2%
• Japan’s Topix index rose 0.3%
• South Korea’s Kospi index rose 0.5%
• Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index rose 0.7%
• China’s Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.3%
• Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index rose 0.3%

Currencies

• The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 0.1%
• The euro rose 0.1% to $1.0373
• The Japanese yen rose 0.3% to 139.81 per dollar
• The offshore yuan was little changed at 7.1456 per dollar

Cryptocurrencies

• Bitcoin rose 1.5% to $16,923.4
• Ether rose 1.8% to $1,227.77

Bonds

• The yield on 10-year Treasuries was little changed at 3.76%
• Australia’s 10-year yield was little changed at 3.62%

Commodities

• West Texas Intermediate crude rose 1% to $82.48 a barrel
• Spot gold rose 0.2% to $1,764.11 an ounce

This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.

–With assistance from Rheaa Rao.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.