- On Wednesday, stocks were mixed, but bonds recovered some of their losses as investors balanced the start of the earnings season against inflation fears.
- Before the Bank of England's next decision in May, inflation in the United Kingdom soared to a 30-year high, while New Zealand's central bank issued its highest interest-rate hike in 22 years. Markets digested Tuesday's US inflation statistics, prompting traders to lower their expectations for how aggressively the Federal Reserve will hike interest rates.
- As the increasing disparity between rising US bond yields and permanently low ones in Japan continued to pressurize the currency, a gauge of the dollar remained constant, while the yen plummeted to a 20-year low.
- Oil prices climbed after Russia pledged to keep the war in Ukraine going and China lifted some of its COVID restrictions.
- IEA stated that on the back of Chinese COVID-19 lockdowns, the IEA reduces global oil demand forecasts for 2022 by 260,000 mln bpd to 99.4 mln bpd.
- The German Economic Institutes confirmed cut 2022 GDP growth forecast for Germany to 2.7% vs 4.8% previously.
-BoJ gov Kuroda said Japan's consumer inflation hovering around 0.5%, likely to clearly accelerate for the time being.
