Market Charts – March 2/22

Investor focus turned to Powell’s testimony before the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday, during which the Fed chief said explicitly that he would back a quarter-point interest rate hike following the Fed’s March meeting later this month. Powell left open the possibility that the Fed would raise interest rates and tighten more aggressively later this year, however, given the current, persistent inflationary pressures rippling across an otherwise solid US economy.

Something to keep our eye on. The Nasdaq 100 has produced a bearish ‘death cross’ today for first time in ~2 years. A ‘death cross’ occurs when the 50-DMA short-term trend tracker (red line) , crosses below 200-DMA , longer-term trend (blue line). Many chart watchers view a death cross as the point where pullbacks often evolve into much deeper downtrends.

Oil spiked again as Russia-Ukraine war fueled panic buying and  OPEC+ sticks to plan for small April output rise despite surging prices. Oil hit in intra-day high of 112.51 before closing the session at 110.60.

Treasury yields also rebounded as investors slowed a flight to safe havens, and the benchmark 10-year yield hovered just below 1.9%.

Stay tuned!