While the latest gains for the miners appear strong, these stocks continue to be sharply down from levels hit a year ago

A solid week for bitcoin miners got even better on Thursday, with the share price of a number of miners again posting double-digit percentage gains after bitcoin (BTC) gained over 2 per cent to $30,500.

Among the movers was Marathon Digital (MARA), which rose 14.6 per cent for the session and now ahead approximately 50 per cent for the week. Hut 8 Mining (HUT) was 15.9 per cent higher Thursday and 37 per cent for the week. Other Thursday movers include Stronghold Digital (SDIG), which rose 26 per cent; Iris Energy (IREN), gained 15 per cent; and Bit Digital (BTBT), increased 18 per cent.

While the latest gains for the miners appear strong, these stocks continue to be sharply down from levels hit a year ago as the firms face the combination of higher energy prices and a bitcoin price that continues to be over 50 per cent below its all-time high. Marathon Digital and Hut 8, for instance, are each down nearly 50 per cent YOY, and Stronghold Digital is off nearly 80 per cent.

Aiding the bullish outlook for bitcoin miners is the notion that inflation as well as the jobs market are cooling, which could give room for the U.S. Federal Reserve to halt or even rollback its year-plus long series of interest rate raises. Earlier Thursday morning, the producer price index (PPI) for March dipped to 2.7 per cent YOY compared to 4.9 per cent in February and against expectations for 3 per cent. The core producer price index – which does not include food and energy prices – dropped from 4.5 per cent to 3.4 per cent.

Besides that news, initial jobless claims for the week ending April 8 increased by 11,000 from the previous week to 239,000. That is the highest since January last year and indicates the starting of a slowdown in what had earlier been a strong jobs market.