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“Ideas come from everything” – Alfred Hitchcock

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Following yesterday’s CPI, traders are looking to extend the rally this morning, as futures indicate a gain of approximately 0.25% at the open. This morning, in an interview on Bloomberg TV, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent expressed a view that the Fed should cut rates by 50 bps in September. Additionally, for anyone concerned that the Administration might end the monthly release of Non-Farm Payrolls, Bessent stated that he would not support such a move.

There’s no economic data on the calendar, but we will hear from multiple Fed Presidents throughout the day. Overnight, Asian stocks rallied, led by the Hang Seng, which surged 2.6% while the Nikkei added another 1.3% on top of Tuesday’s gains. The gains came even as a 5-year JGB auction was met with little demand. The gains in Asia flowed into Europe this morning as well, as the STOXX 600 is up 0.4% as inflation data in Germany and Spain was in line with expectations.

Known by most as either the ‘other crypto’ besides Bitcoin or the Bitcoin bridesmaid, Ethereum looks to be walking down the aisle on its own lately as the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency has surged from under $1,500 in April to $4,700 this morning. Over the last week, Ethereum’s price has broken out above the highs from Q4 of last year to new 52-week highs.

From a longer-term perspective, Ethereum is now not far from its all-time high of just under $4,900, and this morning, Standard Chartered raised its year-end price target to $7,500 and sees it trading as high as $25,000 by the end of 2028. That’s the beauty of dramatic price targets; they generate headlines when they’re made, but no one ever looks back to see if they actually panned out (hint: they seldom do).

This latest surge in Ethereum has been extreme to say the least, with the 50-day rate of change rising to 96%. A move of that magnitude hasn’t been seen since September 2021.

Along with the surge in price, volume in Ethereum has also surged. The chart below shows the daily volume in the iShares Ethereum ETF (ETHA) over the last year. From the start of 2025 through the end of Q2, average daily volume in ETHA was 12.3 million shares. Since the start of July, though, average daily volume has been more than 3.5 times that at just under 44 million shares per day.

So, what’s behind the surge in Ethereum prices and volume over the last 6 or 7 weeks? As shown in the chart below, the move into overdrive coincided with the announcement at the end of June that BitMine Immersion (BMNR) would become an Ethereum treasury company, sending that stock from under $5 to as high as $161. While it pulled back quickly, at yesterday’s closing price of $62.44, the stock is still up 1,364% since June 27th!