Crypto market freefall continues
The crypto currency markets continued in freefall of late with the vast majority of coins experiencing steep declines as of Friday morning. Bitcoin continued dipping and fell below the critically important $8,000 level to settle at around $7,800 on Thursday evening before once again tipping slightly upwards. Ethereum remained relatively static with just a 2% decline to the $216 level. Other losers across the board were XRP, NCHABC and LTC which saw their values decline by between 1 and 3%. LINK, ADA, ETC and ADA also continued their losing streak by around the same levels.
Euro sinks against dollar
The Euro descended to its lowest level against the US dollar since May 2017. Many have been attributing some of the added downside pressure to Wednesday’s surprise ECB Lautenschlaeger resignation. With no reason offered to explain the move, many have speculated it comes as a protest statement against the ECB’s ultra-loose policy stance. ECB Head Mario Draghi is expected to hand over to former IMF Head Christine Lagarde as of November the 1st.
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The U.S. dollar demonstrated mixed trading against its major counterparts in the European session on Thursday. This occurred after the release of a data that showed the U.S. economy expanded in line with the previous estimate in the second quarter.
Data from the Commerce Department showed that said real GDP increased at an annual rate of 2.0 in the second quarter. This was unchanged from the previous estimate and is in line with economist estimates.
The unrevised 2.0 percent GDP growth in the second quarter still reflects a considerable slowdown compared to the 3.1 percent jump in the first quarter.
According to official projections. Thomas Cook’s collapse could potentially cost more than £500m to the government and the travel industry’s insurance scheme.
As the government announced, Air Travel Organiser’s Licence (Atol) would have to refund future bookings, the cost reaching the amount of £420m. Adding more to it, tens of millions are owed to hoteliers and also a £100m bill for chartering at least 1,000 flights to return Thomas Cook customers to the UK.
The financial outcome from the liquidation of Thomas Cook has quickly taken over the market this week, punishing lenders, suppliers, partners and landlords of its high-street shops.