Katana month to date performance, as at July 15th is -1.97%. Bitcoin began trading in July at US$61,850 and peaked that day at $63,800. Concerns mentioned in the last report continued to impact prices in early July. Mt Gox wallet movement and German govt. liquidation pressures saw Bitcoin drop to a low of $53,300. At this point, Katana short positions established near $59,000 were well in the money. Due to the rapid nature of the decline our trailing stop losses were slow to adjust on the longer time frames. Consequently, profits were reduced on the, just as rapid, recovery in price. In the last 24 hours, the last of these shorts were closed at loss and a long position has been established on the break above $59,500.
Influences from the global macro arena include increased confidence regarding the potential for interest rate cuts based on a cooler US CPI. Recent reports indicate the German Govt. has liquidated the bulk of their 50,000 Bitcoin holdings over the last three days with remarkably little impact on price. Overhead supply remains with the 95,000 of the total 140,000 Mt Gox Bitcoin marked for early distribution. It is unclear what percentage of this amount will be sold by the holders. Against this we are encouraged by the potential for some of the $16.3 billion FTX repayment to be made in the near future. The Bitcoin price has shown impressive resilience facing the recent headwinds.
