Bitcoin Falls After Strong U.S. Jobs Data Increases Rate-Rise Prospects — Update

By Renae DyerBitcoin lost ground after stronger-than-expected U.S. nonfarm payrolls data Friday boosted expectations for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates further.Nonfarm payrolls rose 165,000 in October following an upwardly revised 60,000 increase in September, while the unemployment rate fell to 4.1% from 4.2%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Economists in a WSJ survey had forecast a 59,000 increase in payrolls and expected the unemployment rate to remain at 4.2%."The labor market's resilience keeps the Fed focused on inflation and pushes the policy debate further toward a December rate hike," Fitch's head of U.S. economics, Olu Sonola, said in a note.Bitcoin fell 0.3% to $75,548 after the data, LSEG data showed.The cryptocurrency had reached a seven-week low of $75,131 overnight, driven by a selloff in tech stocks due to concerns that the Democratic sweep in the U.S. midterm elections could lead to a slowdown in artificial intelligence investment.Bitcoin later recovered some ground ahead of the jobs data as U.S. stock futures pointed to a rebound in the tech-heavy Nasdaq."Ironically, traders are going with the notion that [a Democrat-controlled Congress] may not necessarily be such a bad thing for the AI hyperscalers, as they are forced to scale down their costly investment plans that were eating into their cash flow," XM analyst Raffi Boyadjian said in a note.Write to Renae Dyer at [email protected]