The attack by Iran on Israel with ballistic missiles could trigger a large-scale war in the Middle East.
In fact, there is a lot of hostility between the two countries, and since they do not even share a border, it would be inevitable that a land conflict between the two would end up involving other countries as well.
Furthermore, both have allies, including the USA for Israel and probably Russia for Iran.
The drop yesterday in the markets: caused by the ballistic missile attack from Iran against Israel?
Yesterday, as soon as the rumor of a possible attack by Iran on Israel with ballistic missiles spread, the markets immediately reacted poorly.
In the course of a few hours, the attack began and also ended.
At that moment the European stock exchanges were still open, and the American ones had already opened as well.
The US stock markets, after the news was released, recorded a -1.5%, which, however, partially recovered during the rest of the session.
The price of Bitcoin instead fell from $63,700 to below $61,000, only to recover slightly.
In particular, it is the price of oil that is most indicative when it comes to geopolitical issues in the Middle East that affect financial markets.
Yesterday, WTI crude suddenly rose from $67 to almost $71, and then continued to rise today reaching almost $72.
It should be noted, however, that during the course of 2024, after rising from $72 to $87 at the beginning of the year, starting in April it began a decline that ended only on September 10 below $66.
Therefore, the current price is still far from the annual highs, and it is perfectly in line with those at the beginning of the year, even though it has risen by 10% in the last 4 weeks or so.
The continuation of the war
Since yesterday’s attack by Iran has ended, but today on the financial markets the fears remain, the key point now becomes how this conflict will evolve.
Yesterday, for example, news also emerged regarding armed clashes in the territories of Southern Lebanon, and this shows that Israel is not willing to give up bringing the conflict outside its borders if it deems it necessary.
It should be remembered that in past decades, and particularly in the second half of the twentieth century, there were numerous episodes that saw the Israeli army fighting on the field in the Middle East outside its own borders.
For now, Iran has only suffered remote attacks, also because between Israel and Iran there are Jordan and Iraq, but Israel has instead suffered a direct attack on its own territory by Hamas terrorists supported by Iran.
At this moment the markets seem convinced that the situation will hardly improve in the short term.
The crypto markets
Even the crypto markets are paying for this situation of uncertainty and fears of a widening conflict.
Taking as a reference the total capitalization of this market, yesterday it fell from 2.200 billion dollars to 2.110, and then continued to fall even today to the current 2.090.
It is only a -5% in about 24 hours, that is, a movement not particularly large for this market.
Furthermore, the current values are still perfectly in line with those of September 19, when the last small rally began that brought the price of BTC well above $60,000.
At the beginning of September, it had also dropped to 1.8 trillion dollars, so the current situation does not seem worrisome at all for now.
Is Uptober already over?
There are already those who claim that the much-anticipated “uptober” will not happen this year.
With “uptober” we mean a positive month of October for the financial markets, and in particular for the crypto ones.
Suffice it to say that from 2013 to 2023, for nine out of eleven Octobers, it has proven to be a positive month for the price of Bitcoin.
Furthermore, in the years of the past halving (2016 and 2020) in October the price of BTC rose by 14% and 27% respectively.
The only two years in which October was negative were two years of bear-market.
The point is that just over 24 hours from the beginning of the month it is really still too early to start imagining how it will end.
Moreover, with the American elections in early November, a new bullrun could start, and the markets could begin to price in this possibility already in the second half of October.
Situations similar to the current one in the crypto markets have already occurred several dozen times, and they have never managed to change the medium/long-term trend.
In short, in the short term there might indeed be some suffering for a while, but in the medium/long term the final word has not yet been said.
This leads to not being able to state at all that what happened yesterday, and what is still happening, will start a new bear-market. The situation is still uncertain and yet to be decided.