Michelle ThompsonWhile the VIX volatility index rises 5.7%, Bitcoin reaches its highest point in over 19 months.
US stock markets saw losses on Monday after a successful week for the fifth consecutive week.
At 9:52 a.m. EDT, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had dropped 23 points, or 0.06%, to 36,219 points.
The S&P 500 dropped to 4,569, a drop of 25 points, or 0.55%. In contrast, the Nasdaq fell 141 points, or 1%, to 14,163.
At that moment, the fear index, or VIX volatility index, increased 5.7% to 13.35. The yield on the US Treasury 10-year increased 1.1% to 4.270%.
The euro dropped 0.5% to $1.0828 versus the US dollar, while the dollar index rose 0.4% to 103.74.
Precious metals reversed direction and were negative, with gold down 1.2% to $2,046 per ounce and silver falling 1.2% to $24.94, despite their recent surge.
With US benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude at $73.49 and worldwide benchmark Brent crude at $78.33 per barrel, oil prices dropped by almost 0.7%.
The price of the largest cryptocurrency in the world, Bitcoin, surged past $42,000 at approximately 10:45 GMT, a level not seen since April 21, 2022, more than 19 months ago.
According to official data, Ethereum, the largest altcoin in the world by market value, also increased during the day to as much as $2,272, its highest level since May 11, 2022.
The latest surge is the outcome of expectations that the US regulatory authorities would approve Bitcoin-based exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and that the Federal Reserve would soon stop tightening its monetary policies.
CoinMarketCap, a website that tracks the price of digital assets, has statistics showing that several altcoins have seen price increases of over 25% in the last day.
The data showed that at the time, the overall value of the cryptocurrency market had increased by 2.8% to $1.53 trillion, with Bitcoin holding a dominant 53.1% share in the market.
