The stock market is impacted heavily due to the drop in oil prices.
Not really. The S&P 500 is only down 2.7% for the week. The energy sector is given very little weight in the S&P 500 due its poor performance in recent years. It only represents 2.77% of the equity market.
https://eresearch.fidelity.com/eresearch/markets_sectors/sectors/si_weighting_recommendations.jhtml?tab=sirecommendationsWhat I'm more concerned about is WTI crude staying below $30 (or even $20) a barrel for a prolonged period of time. That will crush any hope of profitability in the US shale sector and will push many firms into bankruptcy. That could mean big losses in the high yield bond market, which would spill over into the financial sector. If we continue seeing economy-wide losses quarter over quarter, loan and bond defaults will cause those economic losses to start translating into losses on bank balance sheets.
Banks are weighted 4x heavier in the equity market than the energy sector, so when they start losing it'll be reflected much more clearly in stock indices. More importantly, if we do start seeing major bank failures down the line like 2008, liquidity will quickly dry up as the banking system stops lending to conserve cash. When banks stop lending, the liquidity underlying the cash flow of the brick-and-mortar economy will dry up too. That's the Fed's worst nightmare.
Do you all think it will impact the BTC prices as well?
Stocks and BTC are tightly correlated right now. Oil, not so much. When the stock market is finally done relief rallying, I expect BTC to fall too.
Oil is mostly interesting because it's reflective of global economic activity. What happens in the oil market is important, but it will rarely be felt in the equity markets immediately.