27272.72.
It’s all cycles of 2 and 7—the last two digits after the decimal even add up to 72.
Old A-share investors are all too familiar with these numbers. “Double-top formation,” the millennium great top—when the bubble turns, it will inevitably tip over.
So some people started studying the candlestick charts, others looked for patterns in past great tops, and still others posted in groups, “Run!”
And then what?
The Nasdaq continues to rise. Bitcoin surged from $760,000 to $870,000, and the total crypto market cap has regained the $3 trillion mark.
On September 22, the Nasdaq Composite intraday touched 27,272.72, setting a new all-time high. AI and chip stocks led the rally—AMD’s market cap first surpassed $1 trillion, and Meta jumped 11%.
On the same day, Bitcoin hit $87,281, a new eight-month high. Within 24 hours, liquidations across the entire market totaled $877 million; long liquidations were $741 million for shorts, accounting for more than 84%.
Global crypto market capitalization has returned above $3 trillion for the first time since January. Open interest in perpetual futures has risen to nearly $160 billion, the highest since late October last year.
This isn’t a coincidence. It’s three angles of the same thing.
The Fed raised rates, yet the market is celebrating like crazy.
On September 17, the US Federal Reserve announced a 25-basis-point rate hike to 3.75%-4%, the first hike in more than three years.
According to textbook logic, rate hikes are bearish for risk assets. Bitcoin should fall.
The reality is: after the rate hikes, Bitcoin strengthened against the trend—climbing from 76,000 to 87,000.
Why?
Because the market has already “digested” the rate hikes. The expected probability surged from 38% to over 90% before the hikes—what was supposed to run, ran early, and what was supposed to be priced, was priced early. What truly keeps capital here is another storyline: the re-pricing of the AI narrative.
Oil prices slipped back from above $100 per barrel, and the yield on 10-year US Treasuries fell below 5%. Capital is flowing back into tech stocks and risk assets. Meta’s AI agent Muse ignited the market, the logic behind AMD’s CPU demand is being re-evaluated, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index jumped more than 4% in a single day.
Rate hikes are bearish, but AI and liquidity resilience are bigger tailwinds.
Bitcoin was up about 44% cumulatively in the third quarter. Over the same period, gold rose 8.7%, the Nasdaq rose about 2%, and Nvidia rose 11%.
Bitcoin has completely overwhelmed gold, US stocks, and the AI leaders.
At the start of the year, the AI boom pushed US stock tech stocks higher across the board, while Bitcoin clearly lagged. Now the pattern has completely flipped.
Invesco Nasdaq 100 Technology ETF (景顺). Premium rate: 28.3%.
What does it mean? You pay 127 yuan, but the actual net value you get is only 100 yuan. The extra 27 yuan is what you pay for “sentiment.”
Several fund companies have already issued trading suspension notices. Across the whole market, 13 Nasdaq-related ETFs have premium rates above 10%, and 21 cross-border ETFs have premium rates above 5%.
The deep-seated conflict behind a high premium is that the supply of QDII quota can’t keep up with the demand for allocations. There’s only so much quota. Too many people want to buy, so the price in the market is naturally bid up. But the premium won’t last forever. The day the premium converges is the day the chasing buyers finally pay the bill.
A more dangerous signal is this: if the high-premium ETFs tracking the Nasdaq undergo mean reversion, it could trigger cross-border capital to flow back, creating a short-term “draining” effect on the crypto market.
Nasdaq and Bitcoin rise in sync, indicating that global capital is re-pricing “risk.”
What you need to do isn’t choose a side, but make sure you stand on the side where capital inflows are heading.