News Classic

Leading cryptocurrencies inched higher on Sunday as oil prices tumbled after Israel’s attack on Iran avoided hitting the country’s oil infrastructure. 

What Happened: Bitcoin spiked above $68,000 late evening before making a U-turn toward $67,800. 

Oil prices were hit with the U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) falling 4.6% to $68.48 a barrel as Israel struck Iran’s military targets but left its oil facilities unharmed.

Ethereum too reversed the downsides from last week to hit $2,520 before falling to $2,490 due to profit-taking.

Total cryptocurrency liquidations hit nearly $70 million in the last 24 hours, with $45 million in downside bets getting erased.

Bitcoin’s Open Interest surged 3.08% in the last 24 hours, indicating an influx of new money into the derivatives market.

Market sentiment remained in the “Greed” zone, according to the Cryptocurrency Fear & Greed Index, reflecting upside potential.

Top Gainers (24-Hours)

The global cryptocurrency stood at $2.3 trillion, following an increase of 0.61% in the last 24 hours.

Stock futures edged higher Sunday overnight. The Dow Jones Industrial Average Futures rose 197 points, or 0.46%, as of 8:45 p.m. EDT.  Futures tied to the S&P 500 gained 0.54%, while Nasdaq 100 Futures lifted 0.66%.

Last week, major averages such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 fell significantly, closing down 2.45% and 0.88%, respectively.

Investors were looking forward to the third-quarter earnings report of tech behemoths like Apple Inc. AAPL and Microsoft Corp. MSFT, slated for later this week.

Additionally, they would look to dissect key macroeconomic data, including the September jobs report due on Friday and the personal expenditures report scheduled for Thursday.

See More: Best Cryptocurrency Scanners

Analyst Notes: Popular cryptocurrency analyst and trader Michaël van de Poppe described Bitcoin’s ongoing consolidation phase as the longest since 2016 and 2020. 

“I think we’ll break out in the next 2 weeks & see Bitcoin at $90,000-100,000 around NYE,” he predicted.

He further deemed the current cycle as more “complex and different” than previous cycles and predicted it to run longer than usual four-year cycles, depending on liquidity and interest rates.

As it turned out, Bitcoin failed to reach a “bullish” weekly close of over $67,900 as flagged by widely followed cryptocurrency analyst Rekt Capital.

It will be interesting to observe King Crypto’s trajectory as markets open for a fresh trading week.

McDonald’s Corp MCD and food safety officials have ruled out beef as the source of an E. coli outbreak linked to the chain’s Quarter Pounders.

What Happened: The Colorado Department of Agriculture, after conducting numerous tests on fresh and frozen beef patties from state McDonald’s locations, found no traces of E. coli.

Despite this, the source of the outbreak is still under investigation, with onions served on the burgers being the focus.

The E. coli outbreak, which was revealed by federal health officials last week, has affected 75 individuals and led to one fatality across 13 states. McDonald’s has removed the Quarter Pounders from menus in the affected areas and is cooperating with regulatory agencies investigating the outbreak.

Following the test results, McDonald’s plans to resume selling Quarter Pounders in the impacted restaurants in the coming week. However, fresh onions will not be used to dress the burgers in the affected areas for the foreseeable future.

See Also: A $400k/year Meta Employee Fired For Violating Meal Credit Policy – Bought Tea And Toothpaste, Calls It ‘Almost Surreal’

McDonald’s ceased purchasing onions from a Colorado facility run by Taylor Farms, the supplier of the slivered onions to McDonald’s locations associated with the cases. Taylor Farms had recalled yellow onions from its Colorado Springs, Colo., facility last week and stated that no traces of E. coli were found in pathogen tests so far.

Why It Matters: McDonald’s is still awaiting test results for the onions implicated in the outbreak. The Food and Drug Administration announced on Friday that it was collecting onion samples for analysis as part of its efforts to determine the cause of the outbreak.

This development comes in the wake of a series of challenges for McDonald’s. The fast-food giant has been under scrutiny for raising prices faster than inflation, a move that drew criticism from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

Additionally, the E. coli outbreak led to McDonald’s rivals, including Burger King and Yum Brands, removing onions from their menus.

Despite these challenges, analysts have suggested that McDonald’s is well-positioned to contain the outbreak and that the impact on the company’s stock is likely to be minimal.

Price Action: McDonald’s Corp closed at $292.61 on Friday, down 2.97% for the day. In after-hours trading, the stock saw a slight increase of 0.031%. Over the past five days, McDonald’s has dropped 7.66%. Year-to-date, the stock is down 1.49%, according to data from Benzinga Pro.

Read Next:

Image Via Flickr

Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

With the presidential election just a week away, MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor turned up the political heat a few notches higher, asking who between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris would be better for Bitcoin BTC/USD.

What Happened: Saylor, a known Bitcoin evangelist, has been vocal about the cryptocurrency’s growing influence in political discourse.

On Sunday, he added an X poll, asking his 3.6+ million followers their opinion on the polarizing question. As of this writing, Trump was leading with 91% of the votes, with still 18 hours left for the polling. The total number of votes stood at 61,238.

Apple Inc. AAPL is on the brink of a “consumer AI Revolution” with the imminent rollout of its new artificial intelligence system, according to a leading analyst.

What Happened: Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, took to X to share his forecast for Apple’s AI future. Ives predicts that the launch of Apple Intelligence 18.1, scheduled for the next day, will mark the start of a significant shift in the company’s trajectory. He also mentioned the forthcoming 18.2 version in December.

“This is the beginning of the consumer AI Revolution going through Cupertino and will kick off a true supercycle for Apple starting with iPhone 16,” Ives wrote. “We expect a strong iPhone performance for the Sept q/Dec guide.”

Ives emphasized that skeptics of Apple who have overlooked the company’s substantial rise—over $1 trillion in market capitalization—have misjudged three critical elements of Apple’s trajectory: the installed base and pent-up iPhone upgrade demand, the growth of services and their valuation, and the emerging role of AI in consumer technology.

“We believe bears/long time Apple naysayers that have missed the last $1 trillion+ upward move in market cap for Apple have miscalculated 3 important dynamics,” Ives wrote.

See Also: Palantir CEO Alex Karp On Partnership With L3Harris: They Are ‘Better Networked’ And Good At Understanding ‘DC Environment’ — Calls For More Lethal Tech To ‘Scare’ China And Russia

Why It Matters: This prediction comes on the heels of a series of events that have been shaping Apple’s AI narrative. Just last week, a Rosenblatt analyst expressed concerns about the AI-driven super cycle following a trend of declining smartphone upgrade rates.

However, Ives’ forecast suggests a different trajectory for Apple, one that aligns with the high expectations surrounding the Apple Intelligence system. This new AI system is a result of Apple’s use of prompt engineering to enhance accuracy and prevent hallucinations in its AI suite.

A Goldman Sachs analyst has forecasted stronger-than-expected fourth-quarter results for Apple Inc. ahead of its Oct. 31 release.

Price Action: Apple Inc closed at $231.41 on Friday, reflecting a gain of 0.36%, for the day. In after-hours trading, the stock dipped 0.24%. Year to date, Apple’s stock has seen significant growth, rising by 24.66%, according to data from Benzinga Pro.

Read Next:

Image Via Shutterstock

Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

Editor’s Note: The headline in this story has been updated

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele touted his standing as the most popular world leader, with nearly 90% approval ratings.

What Happened: On Sunday, Bukele wrote, “It’s nice to be on top,” in response to a post by widely followed X account World of Statistics, which named him the most popular leader, leaving behind Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Joe Biden.

Dog-themed cryptocurrencies Dogecoin and First Neiro On Ethereum, bounded together by a “familial” connection, led the meme coin rally Sunday.

What happened: NEIRO, named after the newly adopted Shiba Inu pup of the owner of Kabosu, which in turn was the inspiration for Dogecoin, pumped over 6% in the last 24 hours. 

The Ethereum ETH/USD-based token recorded a 62% jump in trading volume over the last 24 hours.

Dogecoin, the biggest meme coin by market capitalization, rose just shy of 4%. It was the most traded meme token in the last 24 hours, with volumes hitting $1.35 billion.

Unsurprisingly, the rally was spurred by tech titan Elon Musk’s X post, which included an image of DOGE showing its bulging biceps.