Bitcoin's massive underperformance to stocks in Q4 bodes well for January

[Confounding]

Hello everyone,

After an active morning Tuesday, BTC flattened out in afternoon trading around the 87,500$ area, up 2% over the past 24 hours.

BTC held in the 87,500$ in U.S. afternoon action on Tuesday, up 2% over the past 24 hours. Also, K33 analyst Vetle Lunde suggested BTC's relative weakness to stocks this quarter could mean rebalancing-led buying once January rolls around.

After an active morning, BTC stayed largely flat in the 87,500$ area in U.S. afternoon trade, holding gains around the 2% over the past 24 hours. Altcoins, including ETH, XRP and SOL showed similar upside action. Crypto-related stocks were also seeing bounces after Monday's plunge, including a 3% gain for Strategy (MSTR) and a 1% advance for Coinbase (COIN).

BTC may benefit from rebalancing, analyst says
With year-end approaching, BTC may benefit from its sluggish performance compared to other asset classes through the quarter as asset managers rebalance their portfolios to maintain their mandated allocation. Earlier this year, when BTC underperformed the S&P 500 index through the first quarter, it started the next with gains. Conversely, when BTC outperformed equities in the second quarter, it booked declines in the beginning of the third. So far in the fourth quarter, BTC has underperformed the S&P 500 by a whopping 26%, suggesting that a sizable rebalancing is due.

Crypto traders hesitant
Derivatives activity on the CME (stands for Chicago Mercantile Exchange) remains near yearly lows, with BTC futures open interest hovering around 124,000 BTC. On perpetual swap markets, funding rates hovered around the neutral rate with open interest showing little movement, signaling lack of short-term directional conviction.

Declining spot crypto trading volumes, down 12% through last week, also confirms that many traders remain reluctant to engage as the year is drawing to a close.
(source: https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/12/16/bitcoin-s-massive-underperformance-to-stocks-in-q4-bodes-well-for-january-says-k33-s-lunde)

Looking forward to hear your opinions,
Confounding

[X-ray]

Could be just bitcoin lagging behind. There are many instances of this happening already and even at the early of this bullrun people were using S&P500 chart to predict what bitcoin's next movement is because of the delay. Just my 2 cents.

It's just another case of bitcoin decoupling from stock which has been happening many times.

This chart might give you a good insight

[EarnOnVictor]

Thanks for bringing this to our attention, and it's constructive enough. But one thing that is sure is that Bitcoin will not regard all that in, at least, Q1 and Q2 of 2026, but will honour1. It's tradition and 2. Prevailing sentiment. I don't see anything different from what we are seeing now happening in the early months of 2026, the sentiment is negative for now.

However, I will start taking Bitcoin's rise seriously if it slips above $107,370

[348Judah]

We still have several days for this year to fold up and we can't predict about what the market could bring for us on this, the best we could do for now is in observation, to see how it could perform to make the best of the season this year and how the beginning of next year could be with the market price, already we have some interesting moments with the Bitcoin performance this year to this time.

[GreatArkansas]

There are a lot of things expected to happen next year, this is also the reason I am still bearish until the end of the month (not unless we reclaim the $100,000 level).
Because as you can see, even the stock market is having hardtime too from the recent dump below $100,000 Bitcoin did, stock market lost too much too.

[JeffBrad12]

Still plenty of time to catch up, it's undeniable that AI is really booming and everybody is throwing money at it, you can expect all the capitals to be going there, even semi conductor manufacturing stock has been climbing like crazy.
There will be time for bitcoin to pump again, even if it's not Q4 of this year, next year is a good time too. At least wait until the AI bubble settled first.