It has been difficult for Bitcoin 

BTC

$16,941

 and the cryptocurrency markets to start a strong sustained recovery while the United States dollar is near its multi-year high and the U.S. equities markets are near their June lows. This shows that the sentiment remains negative and traders are not interested in taking on risk in their portfolios.

The U.S. equities markets fell sharply on Oct. 7 following the release of September’s nonfarm payroll data, but they did manage marginal gains for the week. The S&P 500 rose 1.5% and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.7% last week. Meanwhile, Bitcoin is on track to finish the week with marginal gains of about 2%.

In the past few days, Bitcoin has managed to avoid a collapse even when the U.S. equities markets were being clobbered. This is the first indication that the selling pressure may be reducing and traders may not be willing to part with their holdings at lower levels.

However, for a sustained recovery, Bitcoin will need some support from the return of the risk-on sentiment. Until then, volatile range-bound action is likely to continue, with certain altcoins offering trading opportunities. Let’s examine the charts of five cryptocurrencies that look interesting in the near term.