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 Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell testifying later today and Wednesday. What he says will guide traders as well as lawmakers on how the U.S. central bank is viewing the current state of inflation and how far its campaign of aggressive hikes have come – and most importantly, where markets go from here.
Treasury yields slightly rose as investors looked ahead to the data releases ahead and Powell's commentary after peaking above 4% recently last week.
How far high interest rates have hurt the economy will be under the spotlight this week as he speaks to the Congress, with slowing demand being a key criterial for economies and businesses worldwide. Tesla has recently cut prices for its Model S and Model X in the U.S. to do just that: lure in more customers to spend.
In what could be positive news for the electric vehicle industry, Iran is claiming that it's discovered the world's second-largest known lithium after Chile, if proven to be true, of a deposit holding 8.5 million tons of the metal has been found. This could drive down prices for the metal even further, but that would depend on Iran's capacity to export given it's heavily sanctioned and deals with 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.
