Historical Impact of Macro Releases on Bitcoin and Risk Assets
CPI, payrolls, FOMC, and PCE can move rate expectations, the dollar, and risk appetite simultaneously. Reliable event studies require aligned timestamps, market-session handling, medians, and surprise groups.
Event time and asset clocks
Bitcoin trades continuously while equities and bonds have sessions. For the same 8:30 US release, BTC supports a direct one-hour comparison; an equity daily series compares the prior close with the first post-release close. Calling both 'same-day return' would hide different exposure windows.
Kieran Lab reports one hour, the first available daily close, and the fifth trading day separately; the one-hour window is limited to periods with intraday coverage.
Medians, frequencies, and tail risk
Macro-event returns often contain crisis outliers, so the mean can point opposite the typical event. The study uses the median as its center and reports positive frequency, sample size, and interquartile range. These describe history; they are not probabilities for the next release.
Event types should not be pooled casually. CPI inflation surprises, payroll surprises, and FOMC communication transmit through different mechanisms. Similar price reactions do not make them one statistical population.
Surprises and multiple testing
An event label alone ignores what markets had priced. When actual and forecast values are both available, Kieran Lab separates above- and below-forecast groups without labeling them bullish or bearish: stronger payrolls and higher inflation can have opposite implications.
More events, assets, horizons, and groups increase the chance of a spurious result. A tradable claim requires a small set of pre-specified comparisons and later validation; browser combinations are exploratory first.