The Dow industrials — generous to a fault all year — look like they’re wrapping up another weekly gain and putting it under the tree for us.
There is still a full session to go today, of course. And many good boys and girls seem to have been wanting a cryptocurrency for Christmas instead.
Though maybe not anymore. Bitcoin BTCUSD, -11.28% and its brethren have been falling hard . The No.
1 crypto recently was around $13,800 after trading as low as $12,504 early today, according to CoinDesk data .
So is this the beginning of the end for bitcoin?
Not necessarily, according to our call of the day , which comes from ETX Capital’s Neil Wilson.
“Has the bubble finally popped? It’s hard to see the bell tolling just yet,” Wilson writes in a note. “We can easily see this market bounce back in very short order.”
He sees some conventional profit-taking at work.
That’s as bitcoin’s year-to-date gain is cut to a mere 1,400% or so, and Goldman Sachs reportedly works on launching a trading desk for it .
“Whilst there have been some hacks, public infighting in the mining community, lots of rumored forks and regulatory pressure building on some fronts, this is likely to be a simple bout of risk-off selling as investors rebalance towards year-end,” ETX’s senior market analyst says.
“It looks like it’s time to cash in the gains and spend the winnings on a bumper Christmas.
”
You can’t buy that much with bitcoin, and investors cashing out for traditional currencies are sending its price lower, Wilson suggests.
His take dovetails somewhat with a recent bit of advice from Barry Ritholtz. “Sell enough — perhaps half — to become rich in reality and not just on paper; then let the other half ride,” the Ritholtz Wealth Management CIO wrote earlier this week while bitcoin was above $16K.
Getting back to Wilson, he stresses that big price swings have been normal for bitcoin.
Charlie Bilello at Pension Partners makes that point, too.
He notes the top dog among cryptos — which was approaching $20K on Sunday — has suffered five drops of 30% or more this year:
Bitcoin has declined 34% over the past 4 days, its 5th 30+% correction of the year.
$BTC.X pic.twitter.
com/Tc9SuzU6FU
— Charlie Bilello (@charliebilello) December 22, 2017 Don’t miss: Here’s what the Dow components think about the tax bill
And see: Here are seven new bitcoin-related stocks — most are bonkers
Key market gauges Futures for the Dow YMH8, +0.06% , S&P 500 ESH8, +0.08% and Nasdaq-100 NQH8, +0.06% are slightly higher.
The Dow DJIA, +0.23% and S&P SPX, +0.20% are up 0.5% and 0.
3%, respectively, for the week as of yesterday’s close, so each could score its fifth straight weekly gain.
Europe SXXP, -0.12% is mostly lower, with Spain’s IBEX IBEX, -1.17% hit after Catalonia’s separatist parties fared well in an election.
Asian markets largely closed higher.
Oil US:CLF8 is down, while gold GCG8, +0.14% and the dollar index DXY, +0.06% edge up.
See the Market Snapshot column for the latest action.
The chart Mark Arbeter, NAAIM Equity exposure is at an all-time high, according to NAAIM data going back to 2006.
Exposure to stocks among active managers has risen to its highest level ever, according a recent reading from the National Association of Active Investment Managers. One big caveat: NAAIM’s figures only go back to 2006, as shown in the chart above from Mark Arbeter.
Some high readings in 2007 and 2010 for this NAAIM index came just before retreats for the S&P 500, the Arbeter Investments president says. But other spikes for this gauge didn’t work as “pertinent signals,” he writes in a note.
The buzz Exec departures: Papa John’s PZZA, -0.03% founder John Schnatter is out as CEO , and Eric Schmidt is stepping down from the chairman job at Google parent Alphabet GOOG, -0.12% GOOGL, -0.
25% .
XFL 2.0? WWE’s WWE, -0.62% Vince McMahon may take on the NFL again
Long Island Iced Tea Corp. LTEA, +183.
20% has become the latest company to see its shares burst higher thanks to a name change to something crypto-ish. It’s now Long Blockchain Corp.
, saying it’s shifting its corporate focus.
While Catalonia’s separatist parties won a majority last night in an election for a new regional assembly, rifts within the independence movement suggest the breakneck drive to secede from Spain is unlikely to resume.
Nike’s stock NKE, +1.86% looks on track for a down as the sneakers seller’s earnings beat forecasts late yesterday, but North American sales missed expectations .
Plenty of economic reports are hitting ahead of the holiday weekend. Before the open, watch for releases on durable goods orders as well as personal income, consumer spending and inflation. Then figures for new home sales and consumer sentiment are due once trading is underway.
Check out: MarketWatch’s Economic Calendar
There is no early close today for U.
S. stocks , but the NYSE and Nasdaq will be shuttered on Monday, aka Christmas Day.
On the political front, Congress managed to head off a partial government shutdown , and the UN has basically rebuked President Trump for recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
The quote Bloomberg Ray Dalio doesn’t like the tax overhaul.
“It’s a short-term minor boost to the economy that will have some minor positive longer-term impacts, but by and large it doesn’t deal with the impediments that are holding back investment and productivity in the U.S. economy, and it won’t have any notable effect on our biggest economic, social, and political issue, which is the conditions of the bottom 60% and the growing disparity with the top 40%.” —Ray Dalio knocks the GOP’s tax overhaul in his latest LinkedIn post .
The founder of massive hedge-fund firm Bridgewater initially sounded hopeful about the Trump era after last year’s election, but then switched to detailing his worries .
Random reads Sportscaster Dick Enberg — known for saying “Oh, my!” — dies at age 82 .
Girl gets 25 years in mental hospital in case tied to fictional horror character Slender Man.
“Stunning” — Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s engagement photos are out .
Clinical Anatomy paper: Man’s prostate orgasms “ proved difficult to stop .
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This stat suggests the early bowl games are off to a terrible start.
Instead of 300,000 snowy owls worldwide, researchers say it’s more like 30,000 .
A look at how robots work in warehouses with humans:
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