February 11 Market Recap: Dow Soars, Bitcoin Still Catching Its Breath
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February 11 Market Recap: Dow Soars, Bitcoin Still Catching Its Breath
This is a repricing market.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: TechFlow
U.S. Equities: The Dow Sings Solo While Tech Stocks Catch Their Breath
U.S. equities closed yesterday (February 10), with the three major indices continuing their “divergent performance.”
The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged to a new all-time closing high of 50,188 points—successfully clearing the 50,000-point psychological threshold and continuing upward. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 fell 0.33% to 6,941 points, and the Nasdaq dropped 0.59% to 23,102 points. The shadow cast by the AI narrative remains pervasive.
What exactly happened?
Two simultaneous developments are weighing on market sentiment.
First, December retail sales data came in flat—zero actual growth—versus Wall Street’s expectation of +0.4%. Consumers tightened their belts during the holiday season—a worrying sign. Yet the flip side is positive: the weaker the data, the more markets price in Federal Reserve rate cuts this year. Treasury yields promptly declined, benefiting financial stocks—key components of the Dow. This is a classic counterintuitive “bad news is good news” dynamic.
Second, AI’s “shockwave” hasn’t dissipated. The market’s biggest current concern is precisely whom AI is disrupting. This round of structural fragmentation within tech stocks rests on a simple core logic: chips up, software down. TSMC’s January revenue hit an all-time high, rising 37% year-on-year; Nvidia, AMD, and Broadcom all rose in tandem. Yet enterprise software stocks remain deeply red—ServiceNow and Salesforce suffered single-day plunges of 6%–7% last week. At its core, AI is about “replacing software services with machines,” so chipmakers win while application-layer tool providers face repricing.
Before U.S. market open today (Beijing time), watch two items: first, the critical nonfarm payrolls report—arguably the most important remaining piece for mapping the Fed’s rate-cut path; second, Coca-Cola’s earnings disappointed investors, with international sales—including China—under pressure, potentially triggering further weakness in consumer discretionary stocks today.
Gold & Silver: Rebuilding from the Ashes After an Epic Collapse
If you slept through last week, you might wake up thinking you’ve time-traveled.
The story begins on January 29. Gold hit an all-time high of $5,598 per ounce; silver peaked at $122 per ounce—nearly four times its level at the start of 2025. Then, on January 30, everything stopped abruptly. Trump announced his nomination of Kevin Warsh as the next Federal Reserve Chair, instantly interpreted by markets as a “hawkish signal.” The U.S. Dollar Index spiked that day, shattering gold and silver’s “dollar-independent” safe-haven logic.
The following two days marked historic events for the precious metals markets: gold posted its largest single-day drop since the 1980s; silver plunged over 36% intraday—the steepest single-day decline ever recorded. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) twice urgently raised margin requirements—gold margins jumped from 6% to 9%, silver from 11% to 18%—triggering cascading forced liquidations and a waterfall of sell orders.
Today, gold trades around $5,040 per ounce—still up ~9.6% month-to-date but down over 10% from its peak; silver trades near $82 per ounce—still up ~16% year-to-date but down nearly one-third from its high.
Goldman Sachs maintains its year-end target of $5,400/oz; JPMorgan goes further, forecasting an aggressive $6,300/oz, citing persistent central bank gold buying and expectations of Fed rate cuts as two key long-term supports. UBS, however, takes a relatively cautious view on silver, noting its unique industrial demand profile—excessively high prices could suppress real-world usage—and forecasts year-end silver at ~$85/oz.
Bottom line: In the near term, gold finds critical support near $5,000/oz; silver’s trajectory hinges on whether this week’s nonfarm payrolls and CPI reports can inject fresh “rate-cut optimism.”
Crypto Market: Bitcoin Pauses Near $69K—but the Confidence Gap Remains Unfilled
Bitcoin currently trades near $69,000. Compared to its all-time high of $126,000 reached in October last year, it has effectively halved—down roughly 45%.
This downturn was triggered by the synchronized collapse across U.S. equities and precious metals in early February. Yet Bitcoin’s underlying issues run deeper than those afflicting equities or gold.
Gold fell—but its buying demand remains intact: central banks continue accumulating, and ETF inflows have resumed. Bitcoin fell—and its buying demand continues to retreat: CryptoQuant data shows U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs were net buyers of 46,000 BTC year-on-year; this year, they’ve turned into net sellers. In other words, Bitcoin ETFs have shifted from being “primary buyers” to becoming “sources of selling pressure.”
There’s an even more troubling dynamic: during gold’s sharp selloff, no capital fled into Bitcoin; during equity market turbulence, no capital sought refuge in Bitcoin. The “digital gold” narrative is undergoing its most rigorous stress test to date. On Polymarket, the probability of Bitcoin falling below $65,000 this year has risen to 82%.
Ethereum trades near $2,015; SOL hovers around $84; the broader altcoin market remains equally listless.
Key variable to monitor: Kevin Warsh’s upcoming Senate confirmation hearing. In 2021, he dubbed Bitcoin the “new gold” for people under 40; in 2025, he publicly stated Bitcoin “doesn’t worry him.” His eventual policy stance toward crypto may prove one of the pivotal keys determining whether market sentiment reverses in the second half of the year.
In summary, this is a market undergoing repricing: the Dow’s record highs reflect ongoing profitability in legacy industries; tech sector fragmentation signals AI reshaping industry structures; the collapse and rebound of gold and silver represent real-time investor voting on “Fed independence”; and Bitcoin’s malaise reflects a distinct asset class enduring its own existential faith test.
This week’s nonfarm payrolls and CPI reports will serve as the next arbiter of it all.
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