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Bitcoin (BTC) reclaimed and held $20,000 into Oct. 6 as the latest rebound punished short speculators.

Bitcoin preserves “important” $19,600 zone

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD bouncing from local lows of $19,740 on Bitstamp around the Oct. 5 Wall Street open.

The pair then reversed prior losses, leading early shorters into $20 million in liquidations in 24 hours.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin traded around $20,250, having gone on to reach $20,447 on the day.

Michaël van de Poppe, CEO and founder of trading firm Eight, had flagged the lows as a suitable entry point.

On Oct. 4 and 5, Bitcoin (BTC) took another step through the $20,000 mark, bringing the price above a long-term descending trendline that stretches all the way back to April 22 or Nov. 15, depending on one’s style of technical analysis.

Some traders might be feeling a bit celebratory now that the price trades outside of the descending trendline, but have any relevant metrics or macro factors changed enough to support a bullish point of view for Bitcoin price?

In reality, BTC price simply “consolidated” its way through the trendline by trading in a sideways manner where price has been range bound between $18,500 and $24,500 for the past 114 days.

Direction-wise, Bitcoin and Ether (ETH) tend to trade in tandem with equities, and BTC’s Oct. 4 rally to $20,365 comes as the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed the day with 2% to 3% gains.

As a reminder that short-term price action is not necessarily reflective of a larger trend change, Coin Metrics said:

Bitcoin (BTC) showed strength on Oct. 4 and 5, posting a 5% gain on Oct. 5 and breaking through the $20,000 resistance. The move liquidated $75 million worth of leverage short (bear) positions and it led some traders to predict a potential rally to $28,000.

As described by Moustache, the descending channel continues to exert its pressure, but there could be enough strength to test the upper channel trendline at $21,500. The price action coincided with improving conditions for global equity markets on Oct. 4, as the S&P 500 index gained 3.1% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rallied 3.3%.

Curiously, the sentiment improvement happened while the United States job openings dropped by 1.1 million in August, according to the U.S. Labor Department. The decline was the largest since April 2020 and signaled the U.S. Federal Reserve’s aggressive contractive monetary policy could end sooner than expected.

The overall bullish sentiment might have caused Bitcoin to break the $20,000 resistance, but that does not mean professional investors are comfortable at the current price levels.

Margin traders did not increase their longs despite the rally

Monitoring margin and options markets provide excellent insight into how professional traders are positioned. Margin trading allows investors to borrow cryptocurrency to leverage their trading position. For example, one can increase exposure by borrowing stablecoins to buy an additional Bitcoin position.