Bitcoin's poor showing against stocks in Q4 could mean good things for January

Hey everyone, So, after a busy morning on Tuesday, BTC kinda settled around the 87,500 mark, seeing a 2% boost over the past 24 hours. BTC was hanging around the 87,500 area during U.S. afternoon trading, showing that 2% increase over the last day. K33 analyst Vetle Lunde pointed out that BTC's weaker performance compared to stocks this quarter might lead to some buying action driven by rebalancing come January. BTC was mostly flat around the 87,500 mark in Tuesday's U.S. afternoon trading, still holding onto that 2% gain over the past 24 hours. Altcoins like ETH, XRP, and SOL were also following a similar upward trend. Even crypto-related stocks started to bounce back after a rough Monday, with MSTR jumping 3% and Coinbase (COIN) up 1%. Analyst thinks BTC might score from rebalancing. As the year wraps up, BTC's lackluster performance compared to other assets this quarter could actually work in its favor as asset managers start rebalancing their portfolios to hit their target allocations. Earlier this year, when BTC lagged behind the S&P 500 in the first quarter, it made a comeback with gains in the next. But when it did well against equities in Q2, it faced declines at the start of Q3. Now, in Q4, BTC has underperformed the S&P 500 by about 26%, hinting that some big rebalancing might be on the horizon. Crypto traders are a bit hesitant. Activity in derivatives on the CME has dropped to yearly lows, with BTC futures open interest stuck around 124,000 BTC. In perpetual swap markets, funding rates are hovering.

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

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

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.

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.

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.