Is Bitcoin Correlated With the Stock Market? The S&P 500 Correlation by Year Since 2014, and What Bitcoin Did on the Worst Stock Days

Yes, since 2020, and not before. Across every trading day from Bitcoin's first full years through 2019, the correlation between Bitcoin's daily move and the S&P 500's was 0.01, which is zero for practical purposes. From 2020 through October 2026 it is 0.38, and in 2026 so far it is 0.46. On the 99 days since 2014 when the S&P 500 fell 2% or more, Bitcoin fell too 70% of the time, by -2.85% on average. Bitcoin stopped being a separate asset the year the Fed cut rates to zero and retail accounts arrived on both markets at once, and it has not gone back.

That is the direct answer. The detail matters more than the headline, because a correlation of 0.4 is not "Bitcoin tracks stocks". It means Bitcoin moves with stocks on the big days and does its own thing on the ordinary ones, at about four times the daily swing (4.1% a day against 1.1% for the index), and on weekends, when stocks do not trade at all. Below: the correlation by year, the rolling chart, what Bitcoin did on the worst stock-market days, how much of it happens on Saturdays and Sundays, and what any of this means if software is trading crypto for you.

Bitcoin and the S&P 500, year by year

Correlation of daily returns, measured on S&P 500 trading days, with Bitcoin's close on the same calendar date (Bitcoin trades every day; the stock market does not). A reading of 1 would mean the two always move together, 0 means no relationship, and negative means they move apart.

• 2014: -0.08 (from mid September)
• 2015: 0.05
• 2016: -0.04
• 2017: 0.07
• 2018: 0.07
• 2019: -0.12
• 2020: 0.43
• 2021: 0.26
• 2022: 0.56
• 2023: 0.15
• 2024: 0.36
• 2025: 0.42
• 2026: 0.46 (through October 23)

Two regimes, and the line between them is 2020. The 2014 to 2019 years sit between -0.12 and +0.07: noise. 2020 jumps to 0.43, 2022 is the peak year at 0.56, and 2024 to 2026 run 0.36 to 0.46. What changed in 2020 was not Bitcoin; it was who owned it. Zero rates pushed the same money into both markets, the same brokerage apps sold both, and from 2024 the spot Bitcoin ETFs put it inside the same portfolios as the index funds. An asset held by the same people for the same reasons moves on the same days.

The rolling view: it comes and goes

The chart above is the correlation over a rolling 90-session window. Its highest reading was 0.62 in the window ending July 13, 2022, in the middle of the 2022 rate-hike bear market when everything that had gone up together went down together. Its lowest was -0.34 in the window ending August 12, 2019, when Bitcoin rallied through a flat summer for stocks. The median window since 2015 reads 0.19; 17% of windows were above 0.5 and 37% were below 0.1. The latest window, ending October 23, 2026, reads 0.37.

The practical reading: the correlation is strongest exactly when you would want it to be weakest, in a sell-off, and weakest in quiet, rising markets. Bitcoin has not been a hedge against a stock-market drop at any point since 2020.

What Bitcoin did on the stock market's worst days

• S&P 500 down 2% or more (99 days since 2014): Bitcoin averaged -2.85% the same day, median -2.25%, and was down on 70% of them.
• S&P 500 down 3% or more (35 days): Bitcoin averaged -5.08%, median -2.93%, down on 69%.
• S&P 500 up 2% or more (73 days): Bitcoin averaged +2.21%, up on 70%.

So on a bad day for stocks, Bitcoin has been a worse version of the same day: it falls with the index and falls further. The 30% of big down days where it rose are mostly from before 2020. The VIX study covers what those stock-market days have looked like for the index itself.

The weekend: a fifth of Bitcoin's movement happens while stocks are closed

Bitcoin trades every hour of every day. Measured as the sum of absolute daily moves since 2015, 21.6% of Bitcoin's price movement has happened on Saturdays and Sundays, when the stock market cannot respond at all. That is a little under the 28.6% a two-day share of the week would be, so weekends are slightly quieter than weekdays, but not by much. It means two things for the correlation: Monday's stock move often catches up to a weekend Bitcoin move, and a weekend crypto crash lands on a portfolio that cannot sell its stock side until 9:30 on Monday. What a market that never closes changes about stops and sizing is its own post.

What this means if software trades crypto for you

• Do not treat crypto as diversification from stock positions. Since 2020 a Bitcoin position has added to the same risk on the same days, with four times the daily swing. Size the two together, not separately.
• Stops need to be wider than stock stops, and they run on weekends. A 3% stop that is sensible on a large-cap stock is inside Bitcoin's ordinary daily range. The stop-loss guide covers the arithmetic; the exchange guides for Kraken and Crypto.com cover what each API lets a stop do at 3 a.m. on a Sunday.
• The correlation is a regime, not a law. It was zero for six years and could go back. Anything built on "Bitcoin follows the Nasdaq" should be checked against the rolling number, not assumed.
• Fees and spreads matter more than the correlation. At four times the volatility, a crypto position hits its stop or target far more often than a stock position, which means more round trips; exchange fees and spreads decide what each one costs.

JorgAI automates crypto trades in a member's own Kraken or Crypto.com Exchange account on the same rules as stocks: the member's stop, target, per-trade cap and daily loss limit, applied around the clock by the platform's own monitors, with a separate daily budget for crypto scans so a busy stock morning does not use it up. The start page covers connecting an exchange.

Quick answers

Is Bitcoin correlated with the stock market? Since 2020, yes: the correlation of daily returns with the S&P 500 is 0.38 over 2020 to 2026 and 0.46 in 2026 so far. From 2014 to 2019 it was 0.01, effectively none.

Does Bitcoin go down when stocks go down? Usually. On the 99 days since 2014 when the S&P 500 fell 2% or more, Bitcoin fell on 70% of them, by -2.85% on average.

Is Bitcoin a hedge against stocks? Not since 2020. It has moved with stocks on the big down days and fallen further. Its highest 90-day correlation with the index, 0.62, came during the 2022 bear market.

How much more volatile is Bitcoin than the S&P 500? About four times: 4.1% average daily move against 1.1% for the index, measured on S&P trading days since 2014.

Data: Bitcoin (BTC-USD) and S&P 500 daily closes from Yahoo Finance, September 17, 2014 to October 23, 2026, aligned on S&P 500 trading days; correlations are Pearson correlations of daily percentage returns; the weekend share uses Bitcoin's own calendar from January 2015. Past relationships are not predictions.