Bitcoin Retraces, Litecoin Breaks Out

Since our last BTC update on Thursday, prices rallied an extra $25 dollars to hit a high close to $450 dollars on most exchanges. This propelled its little brother Litecoin to join the rally. But in the past three days both cryptos have retraced somewhat. Let’s start with big brother first and we’ll come back to Litecoin later.

Bitcoin Retraces Over $30 Dollars

Bitcoin retraced over $30 dollars from the highs reached on February 21st. We are currently quoted at $421.97 on Fxopen, slightly above the lows reached earlier in the session. On the chart below we can see that in the grand scheme of things, this retracement is not very large. (Note that due to an outage at FxOpen/BTC-E, this chart doesn’t capture the entire rally to $448-$450.) Bitcoin has rallied over $70 dollars from a low of $374.08 on February 9th. After such a strong rally, a sharp correction was inevitable at some point.

Still, the bulls have to realize that the momentum is no longer in their favor. The trend is still up and the bears will have to push BTC/USD below $390 to end it. But to regain the bullish momentum, bitcoin will have to stage a decisive breakout above the $450 dollars resistance. Higher up we find another strong resistance at $460 dollars per coin. A clean move above here could extend the gains toward the $500 round figure, last year’s high for BTC.

On the lower end, weak support can be found at $410 and $400 dollars per coin. Like we said above, the current rally would technically end on a break of $390 dollars. Below here we have weak support at $374 and $365 dollars, followed by a much stronger level at $350 dollars per coin.

Litecoin Breaks Out

After a long period stuck in a range, Litecoin finally staged a breakout, joining BTC in the rally. Initially prices surged to a high of $3.488 but we have since fallen back to $3.372 dollars per coin.

Support on the way down can be found at the breakout point of $3.33, followed by $3.25 dollars. A clean break below $3.11 would end the current rally.

On the upper end, the first strong resistance can be found at the round $3.50 level. A breakout above here could lead to extended gains toward the $3.65 dollars swing high. Higher up we have more resistance at $3.82 dollars per coin, followed by the $4.00 and $4.50 round figures. A somewhat stronger level can be found at the $4.85 spike high, the highest point for LTC/USD during last year’s bitcoin rally.

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