Global Markets

The annual inflation rate in the US eased to 6% in February, refreshingly back to its lowest level since September 2021 – the market had been looking for 6.4%. This relatively weak inflation print saw US 2-year yields test 3.8% before they bounced back toward 4.25% as the SVB hysteria slowly fades. We believe the Fed/Govt. will engineer calm back into markets over the coming weeks aided by the latest inflation read easing some pressure on Jerome Powell to maintain the Fed’s aggressive hiking path.

Overnight Meta Platforms (the old Facebook) announced it was laying off 10,000 workers as it follows many tech companies striving to improve efficiency – another helping hand for the Fed with employment data set to slowly deteriorate in our humble opinion.

• No change, from a risk/reward perspective we like US stocks into dips with tech remaining our preferred market area.

It’s not often that Bitcoin gets a mention in our reports outside of Macro Monday but the last fortnight’s +20% rally suggests a couple of things to MM:

• We believe there’s still plenty of cash in circulation if a speculative asset class like Bitcoin can make fresh 2023 highs this week.
• It appears that Bitcoin has indeed joined the ranks of gold as a perceived “safe haven” when panic hits financial markets.
• MM’s technical analysis has worked pretty well towards the crypto space over the last few years, perhaps they are slowly becoming a real financial asset.