Does Bitcoin Move With the Stock Market?

Bitcoin was meant to be different. It's not a company and it doesn't pay a dividend. Many people buy it so they own something that doesn't move with their stocks.

So does it? We compared bitcoin's daily close with the S&P 500, the Nasdaq and gold on every US trading day from January 2015 to 2 October 2026. That's 2,955 days.

What correlation means

Correlation is a number between −1 and 1. It tells you how often two prices go up and down on the same days.

At 1, they always move the same way. At 0, there's no link: knowing what one did tells you nothing about the other. At −1, they always move opposite ways.

Most real pairs sit somewhere in between. Anything under 0.1 either way is close enough to zero to mean no link. Around 0.4 is a clear link, but far from lockstep.

Finding 1: before 2020, there was no link

From 2015 to 2019, the correlation between bitcoin and the S&P 500 was 0.02. Year by year it stayed between −0.11 and 0.07. That's no link at all.

Bitcoin had its own crashes and rallies in those years, and stocks had theirs. They just didn't happen on the same days. The highest the 90-day reading got was 0.37, in February 2018, when both fell hard in the same week.

Finding 2: since 2020, there's a real one

That changed in March 2020, when COVID hit and everything fell at once. Since the start of 2020, the correlation with the S&P 500 has been 0.39. With the tech-heavy Nasdaq it's 0.41, about the same.

It hasn't switched off since. Every year from 2020 was positive, from 0.16 in 2023 to 0.56 in 2022. The 90-day reading dipped close to zero for a while in 2023 and 2024, then came back. It peaked at 0.62 twice, in July 2022 and February 2026. On 2 October 2026 it was 0.39.

Why 2020? Nobody can prove it. A common explanation is that big funds and companies started buying bitcoin around then. When the same people own both, they tend to sell both on the same bad days.

Finding 3: on stocks' worst days, bitcoin usually fell too

Since 2020, the S&P 500 has fallen 2% or more in a day 67 times. Bitcoin fell on 50 of those days, 75% of them. Its typical move on those days was −2.9%.

On the 27 days the S&P 500 lost 3% or more, bitcoin fell on 18, with a typical move of −3.7%.

Before 2020 it was close to a coin flip. Bitcoin fell on 17 of the 31 days the S&P 500 lost 2% or more, and its typical move was just −0.5%.

Finding 4: the link is real, but it's not most of the story

Since 2020, a 1% move in the Nasdaq has come with about a 1% move in bitcoin on average, in the same direction.

But bitcoin swings about 2.5 times as much as the Nasdaq. Most of those swings have nothing to do with stocks. Square the correlation and you get the share stocks explain: about 15%, roughly a sixth.

So on any one day, the stock market gives you a hint about bitcoin, not an answer. Crypto news, funding and its own buyers and sellers still drive most of it.

Finding 5: in stock market crashes, bitcoin fell too

The S&P 500 has fallen 10% or more six times since 2015. Bitcoin fell over the same days in five of them.

In the COVID crash, the S&P 500 fell 34% and bitcoin fell 32%. In 2022, stocks fell 25% and bitcoin fell 59%. In the February to April 2025 sell-off, it was 19% against 21%.

The only time bitcoin rose was May 2015 to February 2016, when it gained 61%. That was before the link existed. In 2018, bitcoin was already deep in its own crash, so the falls lined up by timing more than by link.

So if you hold bitcoin to protect you in a stock crash, the record since 2020 says it won't. In every crash since then, it fell about as much as stocks or more.

Finding 6: moving together isn't the same as going the same way

Correlation is about days, not years. Two prices can share most of their up and down days and still end up in very different places.

The latest one is the clearest case. From 6 October 2025 to 30 June 2026, bitcoin fell 53%. Over the same months the S&P 500 rose 11%. Yet right in the middle of it, the 90-day correlation matched its highest reading, 0.62.

How? On the days stocks fell, bitcoin usually fell more. On the days stocks rose, bitcoin often rose less, or not at all. Same days, different trend.

Finding 7: it moves more like stocks than like gold

Bitcoin is often called digital gold. Since 2020, its correlation with gold has been 0.12, against 0.39 with the S&P 500. Its link to stocks is about three times as strong.

Day to day, bitcoin has traded like a risky tech asset, not like a safe one.

What it means for your portfolio

• Don't count on bitcoin to balance your stocks in a crash. Since 2020, it has fallen with them every time.
• Don't expect it to copy stocks either. Stocks explain only about 15% of its daily moves, and it can fall by half while stocks rise.
• Size it as the risky part of your portfolio, not the safe part. Bonds and cash are what usually hold up when stocks fall.
• Check the link from time to time. It switched on in 2020, and nothing says it has to stay.

Method, and what this cannot tell you

We took bitcoin's daily close on Bitstamp, in US dollars, and the daily close of the S&P 500, the Nasdaq Composite and gold futures, from January 2015 to 2 October 2026. We used US trading days only. Bitcoin's close for a date comes about four hours after the US market closes that day, so the two line up. For each day we took the percentage move, then measured the correlation: how closely the two daily moves go up and down together. 1 means always together, 0 means no link, and −1 means always opposite. Binance's bitcoin prices give the same yearly numbers within 0.02.

• Correlation only measures whether two prices move together day to day. It says nothing about which one causes the other, and nothing about whether they rise or fall over a year.
• Weekends are folded into Monday. Bitcoin trades seven days a week, so its Monday move includes Saturday and Sunday.
• A year of daily moves is about 250 numbers. Readings between −0.1 and 0.1 are close enough to zero to mean no link.
• The 90-day reading jumps around a lot. One big shared day, like a crash, can push it up for three months.
• Gold here is the front-month futures contract, which can differ slightly from the spot price.
• The past link doesn't have to hold. It changed once, in 2020, and it can change again.