BREAKDOWN: Why Is September So Bad for Bitcoin?
CoinDesk Podcast Network
CoinDesk
4.8 • 689 Ratings
🗓️ 20 September 2021
⏱️ 14 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A look at the historical trend as well as what’s driving weakness in the crypto and stock markets.
This episode is sponsored by NYDIG.
Today on “The Breakdown,” NLW looks at the historic weakness in the bitcoin market in the month of September. He examines:
- The numbers that show how persistent this trend has been
- Some anecdotal explanations for why it’s so
- Why September is the worst month for stocks historically
- The role of summer vacation and mutual fund fiscal years in that historic weakness
- The latest regulatory FUD around crypto and why stablecoins are the next big target
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NYDIG, the institutional-grade platform for Bitcoin, is making it possible for thousands of banks who have trusted relationships with hundreds of millions of customers, to offer Bitcoin. Learn more at NYDIG.com/NLW.
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“The Breakdown” is written, produced by and features NLW, with editing by Rob Mitchell and additional production support by Eleanor Pahl. Adam B. Levine is our executive producer and our theme music is “Countdown” by Neon Beach. The music you heard today behind our sponsor is “Only in Time” by Abloom. Image credit: jokerpro/iStock/Getty Images, modified by CoinDesk.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. |
| 0:09.1 | It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. |
| 0:16.3 | The breakdown is sponsored by Nidig and produced and distributed by CoinDes. |
| 0:22.5 | What's going on, guys? It is Monday, September 20th, and if you are anything like me, your brain |
| 0:28.6 | absolutely rebels at the idea of seemingly arbitrary things like market seasonality, or, more |
| 0:36.2 | specifically, a single month every year being bad for Bitcoin. |
| 0:41.0 | Historically, though, September's are bad for Bitcoin. Let's look at the data. In 2011, we were down 37.32%. |
| 0:49.0 | In 2012, the other way, 22.05% up. In 2013, down about 1.76%. In 2014, down about 19%. In 2015, up 2.35%, 2016, up 6%. |
| 1:03.1 | 2017 down 7.44%, 2018 down 5.58%, 2019 down 13.38%, 2020 down 7.51% and 2021 down 5.26% so far. |
| 1:17.8 | Now, of course, the farther back you get, the more questionable the data, but as you can see, especially since 2013, it's been fairly consistent. |
| 1:26.1 | Since 2014 and not including 2021, September has averaged |
| 1:29.7 | 7.8% down. That's the third worst month, with January being the second worst month at negative |
| 1:35.2 | 8.3%, and March at negative 14.2%. Although given this year's big January, which was 14.51% up, |
| 1:43.9 | and March, which was 29.84% up, that average might make |
| 1:48.4 | September look even worse historically. |
| 1:51.3 | So what is going on? |
| 1:53.5 | Here are a few of the very general explanations people give on why September is bad. |
| 1:58.5 | One that I've read quite a bit is back to school and jobs. So the logic |
| 2:02.3 | here, I guess, is people are just focused elsewhere, so markets are weak, or there are distractions |
| 2:07.0 | and other demands. I don't really know. People say back to school and jobs a lot without ever |
| 2:11.6 | actually explaining what they mean by back to school and jobs being bad for markets, so make of |
| 2:16.3 | that what you will. Another one that |
... |
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