Stocks, Bitcoin, and Gold Teeter on Edge of All-Time Highs—Is a Mega Rally Imminent?

Markets hold their breath as three heavyweight assets—equities, crypto, and the old-school safe haven—hover just shy of record peaks. The setup screams volatility, but which way will it break?

The trifecta of greed: S&P 500 futures tick up while Bitcoin whales accumulate and gold bugs point to Fed pivot rumors. Classic ’risk-on’ meets ’hedge-your-bets’ behavior—because why choose when you can FOMO into everything?

Technical ticking time bomb: All three assets now trade above their 200-day moving averages. Chartists whisper about bullish pennant formations (when they’re not arguing about Fibonacci retracements over espresso).

The cynical kicker: Wall Street analysts suddenly ’discover’ crypto correlations when bonuses depend on it. Meanwhile, gold’s ’store of value’ narrative gets dusted off—right after central banks finish their buying spree.

One thing’s certain: when stocks, digital gold, and actual gold align like this, someone’s about to get very rich... and everyone else will claim they saw it coming.

S&P, BTC, gold near ATHs

As per the data, S&P 500 is trading at a current price of $5,958 after setting its all-time high of $6,147 on February 19, 2025. It is only 3.27% away from its ATH.

Gold is also trading around $3,200 per ounce, after posting its ATH of $3,509 on April 22, 2025. The precious metal is just 9% out from hitting its fresh ATH.

A Goldman Sachs report stated that investors have been increasing their holdings of Gold since March. It was driven by economic uncertainty, geopolitical risk, and a surprising surge in demand from central banks. But not all moves have made sense to investors.

The recent 5% drop in gold prices, which mirrors a fall in equities, confused some investors. The analyst suggests that gold’s status as a haven asset hasn’t gone anywhere. As stocks sank, investors sold gold to raise cash for collateral, not because they lost faith in it.

On the traditional market side, a bullish sentiment is spreading among investors. Almost 36% of individual investors have indicated a bullish stock market sentiment over the next 6 months in the latest AAII survey. That is the highest level of confidence since the last week of January.

Bullish market sentiment is surging:

35.9% of individual investors expressed a bullish stock market sentiment over the next 6 months in the latest AAII survey, the highest share since the last week of January.

Over the last 2 weeks, this percentage has risen by 15.0 points, the… pic.twitter.com/RvmYHWqswU

— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) May 17, 2025

The Kobeissi Letter in a post mentioned that this percentage has risen by 15.0 points over the last 2 weeks. It is the second-largest 2-week jump since November 2023.

Meanwhile, the group of retail investors suggesting a bearish sentiment has declined 15% to stand at 44.4%. It is the lowest since mid-February. This has eventually marked the end of the record streak of 11 consecutive weeks with over 50% bearishness.

Bitcoin hovers near $104K

Soft US inflation data and Federal Reserve rate cuts have managed to keep the crypto market up and going. Coinbase’s inclusion in the S&P 500 index also improved market sentiment. Bitcoin price hovered around $103k-$104k over the past week.

BTC is trading at an average price of $103,894 as of press time, inching closer to its ATH of $109,026, recorded on January 20, 2025. The biggest crypto is just 5% away from hitting its fresh high. Its surging dominance (62.5%) in the market hints that a rally might be 0n.

In the meantime, the biggest altcoins like Ethereum (ETH) and Solana (SOL) have managed to cover some ground. ETH price jumped by more than 57% over the last 30 days. This surge came in due to the successful Pectra upgrade. ETH is trading at an average price of $2,501 as of press time.

Solana has seen impressive DeFi activity, boosted its value to $184.77, but profit-taking pulled it back to $170. As per the DefiLlama, its TVL spiked by over 28% in the past month. SOL is up by 2% in the last 24 hours and is trading at an average price of $170.73 as of press time.

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