Bitcoin's $4.5 Billion Exodus 🚪

Welcome back to the Day Trading newsletter 📈

Chip stocks got hit with profit-taking, this morning's jobs report landed with a thud, and Bitcoin just closed out its ugliest month in years

Let’s get into it 👇️ 

💼 The U.S. economy added just 57,000 jobs in June (roughly half of what economists expected) while the unemployment rate ticked down to 4.2%. April and May payrolls were revised down by a combined 74,000, and leisure and hospitality shed 61,000 jobs. A cooling labor market could revive hopes for rate cuts.

🚘️ Tesla delivered 480,126 vehicles in the second quarter, crushing Wall Street's consensus of about 406,000. Production topped 450,000, while energy storage deployments of 13.5 GWh came in just below estimates. It's the strongest evidence yet that Tesla's demand recovery is on track, ahead of earnings on July 22.

☁️ Meta shares jumped nearly 9% Wednesday after a report that the company is building a cloud business to sell its excess AI computing power. The move could claw back some of the billions Meta has poured into AI, and it rattled "neocloud" providers CoreWeave and Nebius, which fell 10.8% and 12.4% on fears of losing a key customer.

🤖 Micron plunged more than 10% Wednesday as investors took profits in the chip trade that powered the first half. Sandisk also lost over 10% (while Nvidia and Broadcom slipped 1% to 2%) dragging the Nasdaq down 0.66% even as the Dow touched a record intraday high.

👟 Nike beat earnings estimates Tuesday night, but a 12% sales drop in Greater China kept the pressure on. Adjusted EPS of 20 cents topped the 13 cents expected (flattered by anticipated tariff refunds) and the CFO warned conditions won't improve until at least mid-fiscal 2027. The stock is down more than 35% this year.

🔼 The Russell 2000 hit a fresh all-time high of 3,046.59 on Wednesday, capping its best first half since 1991. The small-cap benchmark returned more than 21% over the first six months (roughly double the S&P 500's gain) as investors rotate beyond the megacap tech names that led the last two years.

🛢️ Oil kept sliding Wednesday, with U.S. crude settling at $68.58 a barrel after President Trump said U.S.–Iran talks in Qatar are going well. Brent lost 1.9% to $71.57, capping a June drop of roughly 21%, its biggest monthly decline since March 2020, as Iranian barrels return to the market. Good news at the pump.

🏭️ U.S. manufacturing expanded for a sixth straight month in June, though the ISM's factory index slipped to 53.3 from 54 in May. New orders and output both grew at a slower pace, and the reading missed forecasts — a sign the industrial rebound is cooling but still intact. ISM says it's consistent with about 2% GDP growth. 

Bitcoin sank to $58,278 on Wednesday (its lowest level in 21 months) capping a June in which the world's largest cryptocurrency fell more than 20%, its steepest monthly drop since June 2022.

The selling showed up most clearly in U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs, which bled a record $4.5 billion in June. It was their worst month since launching in January 2024, and roughly 29% worse than the previous record of $3.48 billion set in February 2025 CoinDesk reported Wednesday.

BlackRock's IBIT (the biggest bitcoin fund) accounted for $3.55 billion of the outflows on its own, closing the month with nine straight days of redemptions.

Spot ETFs are how most institutions and financial advisors buy bitcoin. They were the engine behind the last bull run.

Record outflows mean that engine is now running in reverse: when investors pull money out, the funds sell actual bitcoin, adding steady downward pressure on the price.

The backdrop isn't helping. With the Fed under new chair Kevin Warsh leaning toward rate hikes rather than cuts, holding an asset that pays no yield gets less attractive (especially with a stronger dollar and AI stocks soaking up the market's appetite for risk).

Crypto-linked stocks like Coinbase and the bitcoin miners tend to trade as leveraged bets on the coin, so they feel this too.

What to watch: 

• This morning's soft June jobs report is the first real crack in the higher-rates story. If markets start pricing rate cuts back in, bitcoin gets breathing room.

• Whether IBIT's redemption streak finally breaks in July

• Whether the $58,000 area holds as support. If outflows keep running at June's pace, the pain likely isn't over.

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⚠️ Disclaimer: Not financial advice. Do your research before making any trades.