The FTSE 100 (^FTSE) and European stocks were lower on Monday as bitcoin (BTC-USD) surged to a new record high of $106,000.
The cryptocurrency’s price rise has rallied by more than 50% since Donald Trump’s US election victory on 5 November, thanks to the incoming administration being more friendly towards crypto than the Biden White House.
Last week, Trump pledged to “do something great with crypto”, to avoid other countries getting ahead of the US on the issue.
Bitcoin has risen around 4.6% since Friday night, hitting $106,533, and extending its rise over the $100,000 mark.
“The bitcoin rally since the election has been parabolic and the FOMO — or fear of missing out — rally is gathering momentum,” Peter McGuire from trading platform XM.com told the BBC.
“Many investors believe $120,000 is achievable by the end of the year and then in 2025 there’s talk of greater than $150,000 by mid-year”.
Elsewhere, Monday’s trading session in London includes the debut of production company Canal+, which has been spun off from parent business Vivendi (VIV.PA). However its shares will not be eligible for the FTSE 100 index.
London’s benchmark index was 0.2% lower in early trade.
Germany’s DAX (^GDAXI) dipped 0.3% and the CAC (^FCHI) in Paris headed 0.6% into the red.
The pan-European STOXX 600 (^STOXX) was down 0.2%.
Wall Street is set for a positive start as S&P 500 futures (ES=F), Dow futures (YM=F) and Nasdaq futures (NQ=F) were all in the green.
The pound was 0.2% up against the US dollar (GBPUSD=X) at 1.2645.
Key companies reporting this week: Nike (NKE), Micron (MU), Accenture (ACN), FedEx (FDX) and Birkenstock (BIRK).
