Top 5 things to watch in markets in the week ahead
Investing.com – February data including consumer prices and retail sales will offer more cues on the prospects for potential Federal Reserve rate cuts. Bitcoin hits record highs, while Wall Street could be in for another volatile week. Here’s what you need to know to start your week.
Investors will be looking to Tuesday's U.S. inflation data as they try to gauge how soon the Fed could start cutting interest rates.
Economists are expecting February's consumer price index to rise 0.4% after a faster than expected increase of 0.3% in January.
On Thursday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said it would likely be appropriate to cut rates “at some point this year,” but made it clear that he and his colleagues aren’t ready yet.
Market watchers will also be looking to Thursday’s retail sales data for February, which is expected to rebound 0.8% after falling the same amount a month earlier.
The economic calendar also features updates on industrial production, consumer sentiment and weekly data on initial jobless claims.
Fed officials will be entering the traditional blackout period ahead of their upcoming meeting next week.
Bitcoin has hit a new all-time high above $70,000, boosted by investor demand for new U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs that launched this year and expectations for global interest rates to fall.
Billions of dollars have flowed into ETFs in the past few weeks, while the market has also been underpinned ahead of an expected upgrade to the ethereum blockchain platform, home to the second-largest digital ether, and a bitcoin «halving» event, which slows the flow of bitcoin minting, in April.
The previous bitcoin boom in 2021 was followed by a «crypto winter», when bankruptcies and collapses at the biggest crypto firms left millions
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