We know Wall Street traders are getting large Bonuses in January and some of them might invest some of that money into Bitcoin for themselves. Why would they not manipulate small markets like Bitcoin to buy cheaper bitcoins for themselves?
What do you think?
Those guys already have beethoven futures so they don't even need to buy BTC because those futures are in USD. The traditional investors are still too conservative to buy bitcoin by themselves. They can get the profits without buying BTC and dealing with crypto related services. They also don't need to drop the price to get a good profit.
As you already mentioned the news from asian region are nothing more than just a fud. For example today on the reputable news website I've seen that china is trying to leave miners without electricity.