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This Week’s Top Stories
“The Federal Reserve decided to cut 25 bps, without any large surprises in Powell’s speech” – Wednesday, 17 September 2025
- On Wednesday, the Fed announced its interest rate decision in line with expectations. The 25-bps cut had been anticipated by the market for a couple of months and did not bring much volatility to the market. The September meeting also included the dot plot, which relays what FOMC members project for key macro variables in the months and years ahead. While the dot plot in June projected two cuts for 2025, the September dot plot now shows three total cuts in 2025, aligned with market expectations.
- Overall, the interest rate decision, the FOMC statement, the dot plot, and Powell’s press conference did not surprise many market participants, and the rather positive price action of risk assets reveals that some uncertainty has been removed. The Fed does not seem to want to mess with the current market rally at this point in time.
- The Fed remains committed to monitoring the implications of incoming information for the economic outlook and would be prepared to adjust the stance of monetary policy as appropriate if risks emerge. As they put it in their statement: Recent indicators suggest that growth of economic activity moderated in the first half of the year. Job gains have slowed, and the unemployment rate has edged up but remains low. Inflation has moved up and remains somewhat elevated.
A Quick Crypto Overview: Stocks at ATHs, Gold Flat, DXY Bottoming?
The crypto market has been trading to the upside this week, but it has been a choppy ride. The market corrected into the FOMC decision on Wednesday evening and then reacted positively to the interest rate decision alongside the U.S. stock market. Bitcoin reached a new multi-week high, at around $118’000, with Ethereum trading back above $4’600.
How does the bigger picture look? Well, the U.S. stock indices reached new all-time highs yesterday, gold traded at all-time highs earlier in the week, and has now corrected a bit lower. The U.S. Dollar Index took a hit after the interest rate decision on Wednesday, but is now trading higher, in what could be an attempt to form a bottoming pattern on the higher time frame. The DXY is certainly something to keep in mind, as a bottom could indicate some trouble for risk assets, but it’s currently a little too early to tell, and current macro trends seem to contradict this thesis and make it rather contrarian.
The total market cap excluding Bitcoin is flirting with a new all-time high, while Bitcoin dominance is showing the first signs of a bottom formation in the lower time frames, and Ethereum dominance is fighting to not lose too much of its strength – we are at an inflection point. A shift back into Bitcoin, for it to make a fresh attempt at breaking out to a new all-time high, would certainly be a good sign for the overall crypto market.
Chart of the Week: Altseason, or will BTC take back over in the short term?
While the crypto Fear and Greed Index is still at neutral levels, there was some euphoria in the market yesterday, with altcoins attempting to break out of their ranges, especially against BTC. This morning, the sentiment is muted again, and as mentioned earlier, Bitcoin dominance could be in the process of bottoming in the short term, with ETHBTC also looking heavy in the lower time frames.
Below, we are looking at the ETHBTC chart on the daily time frame. A move lower toward 0.035 could pose an interesting dynamic before another potential attempt to break above the 0.042 level.
