SignalPlus Macroeconomic Analysis (20240327): The first quarter is about to end, and the market has temporarily returned to calm

Before the holiday on Friday, the market remained very calm, with global markets basically maintaining the levels of the previous day. The U.S. Treasury and foreign exchange markets were mostly in consolidation, and the U.S. stock market was initially showing a similar trend until a large-scale futures sell-off at the end of the trading session pulled prices down to lows. As the first quarter of this year is about to end, the trend over the next two days is expected to be mainly driven by rebalancing activities, with no major data releases or important economic events for the remainder of the week.

While institutional investors are taking a break, the proportion of options trading volume by retail investors has reached a historical high, pushing the average daily options trading volume in February to an all-time high. Former President Trump's SPAC has become a new favorite for retail inflows, with the stock rising 16% after its first day of trading, reaching an astonishing valuation of $8 billion. Who says only cryptocurrencies can enjoy the fun of meme coins?

In terms of cryptocurrencies, after experiencing the pressure of continuous selling of GBTC last week, BTC has once again returned to the $70,000 range. The outflow of funds has slowed down, and net inflows have returned to balance. March has still been a very good month, with net inflows close to $3.9 billion so far.

Additionally, regulators have once again become the focus of news, with the CFTC filing a lawsuit against Kucoin, accusing them of illegally conducting over-the-counter commodity futures and margin trading without being registered as a regulated swap execution facility (SEF). Interestingly, the CFTC referred to BTC/ETH and stablecoins as "commodities" in its official complaint, which stands in stark contrast to the SEC, which continues to assert that everything except BTC is a "security."