Market Wrap: Crypto Mining Stock Hut 8 Jumps on Unusually High Trading Volume

Volumes for Hut 8's stock are over 1.5 million in shares traded Friday, nearly eight times the daily average.

The stock's price did dip some in afternoon trading Eastern time, but the jump is still striking.

As the bitcoin halving looms, traders will be watching publicly traded crypto mining companies to better understand the profitability of generating BTC for cash flow.

The drop in oil prices this year has been a huge topic for traders across all markets, including crypto.

On Jan. 2, the first day of trading for the year, oil changed hands for as high as $64 a barrel.

Bitcoin is above the 50-day moving average on spot exchanges such as Coinbase but trading action has been fairly flat, with little up or down movement.

A sharp increase in stablecoin issuance is giving traders an easy place to park value on flat bitcoin days like Friday, according to Mitesh Shah, an analyst and founder of Omnia Markets, which studies the crypto market.

Sitting in price-stable crypto may even set the stage for a bitcoin binge in the future when traders decide to not sit on the sidelines.

Europe's FTSE 100 index end its day up 2.4 percent as excitement over possibilities for pandemic drug remdesivir spilled over to the London trading day.

In the United States, trading of the S&P 500 index climbed 2.7 percent.