Thursday's Market Update (March 9, 2023)

10 Mar 2023 by rate3

On Thursday, traders, confused by Powell's latest public performance, either played technicals, ignoring fundamentals yet again, or played fundamentals, ignoring the Fed. The NASDAQ jumped from 11,578 to 11,667 on the opening, prompted by the Department of Labor's weekly jobless claims report. However, then, market actors promptly turned around on the spot, taking 2 percent from the index value and closing at 11,338. BTC's fall was accelerated by the Silvergate announcement. It plunged much further during the day session, by 7.3 percent (open: 21,703, close: 20,116).

As for the jobless report for the week ending March 4, it showed that initial claims increased by 21K to 211K - the highest weekly uptick since December 2022, which far exceeded market expectations of 195K.

Traders' bearish activities and Lane's bank crises completely overshadowed Michael Barr's message of conciliation to the crypto community delivered in Washington DC. Barr, Biden's nominee to the FED and former Treasury Under Secretary under Obama who holds a Juris Doctor degree from Yale, stated that "Our goal is to create guardrails, while making room for innovation that can benefit consumers and the financial system more broadly." Barr has promised to create "a specialized team of experts" to achieve this goal. However, it is unlikely that this will lead Fed Boomers to listen and stop knee-jerking, in my opinion :)