How Ethereum reacted to the Personal Consumption Expenditures on 30 September 2022

Measured by Clometrix

Ethereum's volatility ratio was 4.68x, against 1.77x for a typical PCE release since 2021. Its volume ratio was 12.11x, against a typical 2.11x. That is more than twice what this release usually does. Both compare the quarter hour of the release with an ordinary quarter hour that same day, where 1.00x is no change: volatility is how far the price ranged, volume how much traded.

How Ethereum moved

Ethereum was at $1,340.44 when the figure came out. Fifteen minutes later it was 0.8% lower, and an hour later 1.42% lower. Its high-to-low range in the hour after was 2.07% of its price, against 1.3% in the hour before.

The release

Released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis on 30 September 2022 at 8:30 AM EDT. The Personal Consumption Expenditures came in at 0.3% for August 2022, against 0.0% in July 2022. Prices are rising again, after a fall.

It arrived at the same moment as Personal Income and Outlays and Core Personal Consumption Expenditures, so the reaction measured on this page belongs to all of them together.

What made it matter

Since 2021, PCE releases in the two weeks before a Fed decision have moved Ethereum about as much as those at other times: a median volatility ratio of 1.86x across 18, against 1.72x across 52. This one was not within two weeks of a Fed decision. Its own ratio of 4.68x compares with 1.72x for those, so it moved the price more than its circumstances alone would suggest.

Its record

Across 70 PCE releases since 2021, Ethereum's median volatility ratio is 1.79x.

What it means

Ethereum's reaction to the 30 September 2022 PCE release stood out sharply from the event's established pattern. Volatility reached 4.68x the level seen in an ordinary quarter hour that day, more than double the 1.80x median recorded across 69 PCE releases since 2021. Volume expanded even more dramatically to 12.11x, against a typical 2.15x. Clometrix therefore classifies the move as exceptional.

The price action confirmed the scale of the response. Ethereum stood at $1,340.44 at the 8:30 AM release. It fell 0.8 percent within fifteen minutes and 1.42 percent within the hour. The high-to-low range over that hour reached 2.07 percent of spot, compared with 1.3 percent in the preceding hour. The figures arrived together with Personal Income and Core PCE, so the measured reaction reflects the combined release.

Timing relative to Federal Reserve decisions does not explain the size of the move. PCE releases inside the two-week window before a policy meeting have produced a median volatility ratio of 1.86x for Ethereum, nearly identical to the 1.77x median outside that window. This particular release fell 32 days before the November decision, yet delivered 4.68x volatility, well above the 1.77x benchmark for comparable non-Fed-window episodes.

Traders reviewing the record therefore see that an outsized reaction can occur even when the usual timing catalyst is absent. The data show what coincided with the release rather than what produced it, and they offer no basis for projecting the magnitude of the next PCE print.

What is the Personal Consumption Expenditures?

Every PCE release for Ethereum