In ending last week in the red, the world’s fifth-largest cryptocurrency, litecoin, has confirmed its longest weekly losing streak in a year.
LTC suffered an 8 percent drop in the week ended Sept. 1, having registered 3.17, 15.10, and 5.74 percent losses in the preceding three weeks, according to Bitfinex data.
That is the longest losing streak since August 2018. Back then, the fifth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization had suffered losses in each of the four weeks of August.
Weekly chart
The August 2018’s four-week week losing streak saw LTC clock a high and low of $85 and $49, respectively, meaning prices fell by 42 percent.
The latest four-week sell-off brought LTC lower to $62 from $107 – again a 42 percent drop. It is worth noting that the price slide has happened following litecoin’s mining reward halving on Aug. 5.
That is hardly surprising as the cryptocurrency had priced in the impending supply cut with a 100 percent price gain in the first three months of this year. Also, it is worth noting that despite the recent drop, LTC is still up 123 percent on a year-to-date basis.
More importantly, LTC is now trading around the 50-week moving average (MA) – a level, which consistently acted as strong support in 19 months before the bullish breakout in March 2017, as seen in the chart below.
LTC’s dips to or below the 50-week MA were short-lived throughout the August 2015 to March 2017 period.
The cryptocurrency picked up a strong bid near the key average at $4.09 at the end of March 2017 and rose to a record high of $370 by December 2017.
As of now, LTC is trading around the 50-week MA located at $67.94. If history is a guide, LTC could continue to trade in a sideways manner around the MA line for at least the next few months, before breaking into the next bull market.
Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency assets at the time of writing.
Litecoin image via Shutterstock; charts by Trading View