 Okay, it's just coming up to 11 p.m. on March 20th So just going into electronic open thought I gather some of the major news in the weekend Just get you up to speed. What can you expect from the week ahead? We're gonna bring up some charts as well from a longer term perspective in the equity and energy market But I thought prudent just to start with the heat map of the S&P 500 But rather than the daily performance this was last week's Performance and as you can see here some really bright Scream green spots across the board. We had the lights at Amazon up nearly 11% Apple up six Microsoft up seven and a quarter Google up nearly five and these are don't forget mega cap tech names So some big outperformance in the lights of the Nasdaq 100 in fact the S&P and Nasdaq posted their biggest weekly gain since November of 2020 and just wanted to bring that up first and have a look at a few things and discuss a little bit the market mood at This present point in time because it's been a as we know an incredibly volatile start to the year For different reasons, but namely that most recently of the geopolitical tensions emanating from Ukraine But here we are. This is the S&P 500 on a weekly Candlestick chart and this was last week's move. You can see here this big fat green candle Biggest weekly rally we have since November 2020 as mentioned we bottom out At around a key level of now What will be closely followed support on the higher time frame at 41 38 and a half in the futures market? You can see that held up a couple times last week and also did Create a period of support as well through April May and June of 2021 I'm just having a look at a couple of different things for one You know, where do we go next from here in regards to? The equity indices we have bounced a lot Question marks over is this a dead cat bounce i.e. meaning that it's just a slight reprieve before we Move back to the downside for the more bearish camp thinking that we're not out of the woods yet We're going to see further escalation from Russia military advancements And that's going to create more nervousness in the market or the opposite and actually have we hit as far as market Positioning is concerned peak Ukraine and do we start to move higher and I've got up here JP Morgan They are the perma ball on the streets So a bit of context needs to be applied But they reiterated their court the end of last week for 4,900 year-end S&P which should be a good kind of 10 percent above where we were trading last week and What they're kind of Russia now is is that we've now cleared the much anticipated anticipated Fed lift off with the policy likely as hawkish as it gets and you know I think that is a very important milestone that we've crossed if you think about prior to the Ukraine situation emerging It really was this Almost anxiety that the markets was really sensitive to since the beginning of the year with a lot of that yield Movement that we saw and subsequently leaking out into other asset classes over the Fed having to initiate Not just the execution of the first rate hike, of course But it's the commencement of that cycle and now that that's out of the way Have we now got a degree of a little bit more visibility over the medium-term horizon rather than the unknown? Which was at the time talk of 50 talk about multiple rate hikes The kind of cat is out the bag in that regard. The other thing that I thought was quite interesting that I read this weekend was talking about Last month's inversion of the VIX futures curve and that has actually reversed in recent days In tandem with what we've seen a little bit of the the uptick in the equity markets of late so that kind of positioning and hedging for Short-term shock in the market is starting to dissipate a little bit does come as well as we we started to get the emergence of some of the kind of more ceasefire type neutrality talks coming through although I'm sure much Debate to go on between those two nations before we get anywhere near a permanent more resolution of which Military was drawn on so forth But the signs of that happening has been met a little bit more positive a good quote that I saw over the weekend was that a fund manager said now I'm More worried about the next three months versus three three weeks ago when I was just worried about Tomorrow and I think that really kind of sums up definitely that VIX position or move Some of the equity rallied we've had at the moment I think the Fed now having come out and that's already passed now I think that's quite a meaningful event as plus as well that the markets now have a Climatized a little bit albeit still a fluid situation to what's been happening and obviously in Ukraine A few other things to be aware of on this kind of discussion point stocks Historically have weathered rate hike cycles fairly well looking at data provided by analysts at UBS the Swiss Bank They said since 1983 the S&P 500 has returned an average of five point three percent in the six months following the first Fed rate rise of a cycle now don't get me wrong I do definitely look at these types of statistics with some interest, but we do need to apply the context of the situation Obviously inflation a particularly sensitive metric right now given the direction of travel sites go much further north at the moment I'm still mindful of mapping supply chain disruptions coming out of lockdowns emerging in China at the moment So things can change and but the historical pattern is fairly telling The other thing for the more to even out the argument for the sake of not sounding too bullish is the fact that fund managers Allocation to cash that is currently standing at its highest levels since April of 2020 as according to Bank of America's Latest global research monthly survey So a lot of people have been sat on the sidelines It's gonna be interested to track that data to see whether or not they start to dip their toes back into the water now Given some of the the things I've just mentioned One of the other things I guess to talk about while we're on the charts at the moment is oil prices Because when we go back to the heat map and we look at last week's price activity You'll see there are two quite bright spots of red down on the right hand side And that isn't the energy components and that's for Exxon mobile and Chevron Exxon was down about seven and a half percent Chevron was down about 5.4 but don't forget that these stocks have really outperformed in the prior weeks And of course that comes after we've seen a rampant oil price And that kind of positioning play of the potential energy disruption effects that we're seeing from the Russian invasion of Ukraine So we initially peaked up not that long ago It was only back 7th of March when we hit that when the futures market up at around the 130 price point But we've come collapsing in price and actually from peak to trough of last week's low printed back on Tuesday We've actually declined about 28% and a little bit of that also being weighed upon by that aforementioned situation in China that we're seeing at the moment with further Covid outbreaks that we're seeing which are resulting in large populist areas being locked down again congestion at key transportation Manufacturing hubs which is going to be particularly key from the supply chain front But from the energy demand point that did weigh a little bit We bottomed out and actually though as we started to see some more albeit Inconclusive headlines a lot of noise last week over Ukraine the price did bounce quite aggressively And we actually finished a week up at around 105 So yeah quite a lot to digest there But certainly last week energy suffered a little bit would be interested to see how we settle out here I'd probably say that barring anything substantially unexpected than perhaps then At this point being that I doubt we'll get any kind of concrete deal as yet between Russian Ukraine That's probably gonna take weeks if not months for that to really emerge. And so The idea of that happening immediately and prices just declining on pricing out of that risk I think is gone and then also the China stuff's kind of already filtered in from last week So perhaps we start to trade a little bit more of an hour range, but still I did imagine very volatile One thing to mention on the energy front while we're on the subject is we did have this over the weekend should definitely be aware of it Yemen's Iran aligned Houthi group fired missiles and drones At Saudi energy and water distillation facilities over the weekend causing a temporary drop in output at a refinery But no casualties have been reported. So according to the Saudi energy ministry and state media today on Sunday I haven't been able to actually find out the degree of the temporary drop But it has been termed as temporary. So I'm assuming that it's gone back up But nonetheless, definitely I'd be interested to see how electronic trade opens in the crude market Not looking for any long-lasting nature in terms of impact on the back of this headline But perhaps a little bit bumpy at the get-go In futures trades as we get underway momentarily Yemen's Iran aligned Houthi trying to disrupt Saudi infrastructure is not uncommon So is this the initiation of something new not really because this sort of stuff goes on quite a lot The point here is it has hit a specific energy facility, which is quite interesting The other things then let's update on Russia. What is the latest here and Ukraine and Russia has given Ukrainian forces a Monday deadline to surrender control of the besieged port city of Maripole down here You can see in the southeastern corner Russia's advance in Maripole came after Kiev said it had been cut off from Statistically important sea of as of a conduit to the Black Sea and capturing Maripole would give the Russians control of the main part of Ukraine's southern coast as you can see here and kind of links up The move north they've made out of Crimea and then moving towards the east to connect with the Russian separatist areas that were originally there from 2014 It also comes after Russia's defense ministry has said that on Saturday had used a Kenzal hypersonic missile to hit a target in Ukraine for the first time so a bit of new weaponry coming to the table Despite that the Ukrainian president Zelensky did call for a comprehensive peace talks with Moscow And with that in mind and in terms of the schedule for this week ahead NATO heads of state including US President Joe Biden are going to be gathering on Thursday for an extraordinary Meeting to discuss next steps in retaliation to the conflict. I think this will be particularly interesting Given the fact that lots as lots have happened to certain different degrees in terms of countries reactions and sanctions and so forth Particularly interested to see how the German US relationship is looking at the moment given the fact that There's certainness of Biden But really it's Germany who takes the brunt of that and certainly we're going to get some German economic data this week Which will be interested to see the impacts of the Ukraine situation In terms of that meeting with NATO heads of state It will also coincide with a pre-planned meeting of European Council members of EU member leaders Discussing the energy crisis and COVID as well as the Ukrainian war as well Okay, other things in the news before I talk about the kind of week ahead one was from some ECB comments The ECB the bank will take action if it sees second round inflation effects and a De-anchoring of medium-term inflation expectations as according to the vice president Louis de Gwendoz over the weekend As terms of the calendar What have we got on the outlook? Well actually Monday and Tuesday are pretty quiet overall So as you can see here from this calendar from the Dutch Bank ING it really kicks off from Wednesday But a few things to talk over from a top level First off from the UK we've got UK CPI coming out on Wednesday And that is expected to tick up year on year to 5.9 percent from 5.5 But I would definitely not expect that to really create any shock in the market And that's because we already know The UK inflation is gonna head substantially higher than than what's expected in this particular reading the Bank of England said at their most Recent meeting of course last week then inflation is now expected to climb to 8% in Q2 with a risk of further advances thereafter So got a long way to go in that story and so an upside price shock unless it's Substantially higher and we still got things like the changes in electricity and prices things like that to drop in April could create a Reaction in markets, but I think a lot of people are kind of primed for that to be the case going forward Also on Wednesday on the same day chance of the Rishi Sinek delivers his spring statement Which will create a lot of media interest. I'm sure and you'll read about it a lot in just the The general news because households are really feeling the pain at the moment with wages Well below that of the the level of inflation that we're anticipating to see going forward That's putting a lot of pressure on those household incomes Confidence and so on and so forth It's worth noting though that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected separate from the spring statement to outline a plan For the broader energy strategy at this this week I don't have a day at this point or a time, but that might give Sonak a little bit of breathing room I guess in that regard to kind of talk about that as a separate point Bank of England dissenter If you remember there was one John Cunliffe the deputy governor He is actually speaking on Tuesday could be quite interested to see what he's got to say He voted against the pack and actually went for a hold decision despite the bank executing their third consecutive rate hike last week And Governor Bailey is up on Wednesday and you've got UK retail sales coming out as well on Friday Which again with UK data, it's probably going to materially worse Particularly when it comes to something like consumer spending at this point because of the household Incomes being squeezed Confidence is likely to degrade over time and that is going to have a consequent impact. So Again, the low side numbers are probably not going to be that surprising Both this figure and particularly going forward and then otherwise on Thursday You can see quite a busy day and that's because we get the European flash PMIs UK US as well And that's expected to show a sharp drop in business activity Largely, of course due to the Ukrainian situation the recent ZDW survey You remember beginning of last week saw expectations metric fall to a pandemic low And that kind of sets the scene then ifo likely to follow suit again If you're not familiar with these data points ZDW is the survey of current economic conditions and six months outlook from Economists and analysts German ifo is from thousands of businesses on the ground in Germany So it's a really good insight to see how pessimistic basically they're becoming given the Risks associated with the connection of that with disruption from Russia and the situation in Ukraine the impact Definitely like to be most acute in in Germany compared to the more service-based industries like that in France, for example And German ifo that comes out on Friday is expected to drop by about five points down to around 94 spot one For the US perspective aside from PMI you got new home sales. Did you on Wednesday? Durable goods, which analysts at ING note that it's like to be dragged down by a drop in Boeing Aircraft orders that alongside weekly jobless claims all due on Thursday And then you do have Fed chair Jerome Powell speaking on Monday and Wednesday In fact, I haven't listed all of them in my notes, which you can obtain by my Twitter handle, but There are a lot of Fed speakers this week And so looking out for perhaps a little bit of clarity We've already had the meeting and so we've got some degree of visibility Perhaps looking for any information further on the balance sheet side of things could be something to to just keep on the on the radar But that is it from me. So hopefully that was useful Don't forget. 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