Good morning. This is Jihye Lee writing to you from Singapore. I'm sitting in today for Yeo Boon Ping, who is on leave.
All eyes will be on Powell testifying today and Wednesday. What he says will guide traders as well as lawmakers on how the U.S. central bank is viewing the state of inflation and how far its campaign of aggressive hikes has come – and most importantly, where markets go from here. Treasury yields rose slightly, after peaking above 4% last week.
Powell is almost certain to face tough questions from Congress. He'll likely be asked how badly high interest rates have hurt the economy, as global markets face a slowing business environment.
Iran claims it's discovered the world's second-largest known lithium holdings, after Chile's. Iran says it found a deposit of 8.5 million tons of the metal. But whether the EV industry will benefit from that claim is very much in question. While a deposit that large could drive down lithium prices, bringing that commodity to market would depend on Iran's capacity to export. The country's economy has been crushed by heavy sanctions and a plunging currency.
And finally, we look ahead to International Women's Day. Moody's Analytics in a recent report said it may take 132 years for the world to close the gender pay gap. And when it does, the world will see an economic boost of $7 trillion – that's an additional 7% to the world's GDP of untapped potential.
