The Merge Approaches
Weekly Recap
For the first time since December 2018, the Fed announced a benchmark interest rate hike of 25 bps and signaled for six more hikes this year. It is apparent that the market had priced this in (discussed further below) and is content with the lack of increased hawkishness despite rampant inflation.
Bitcoin and ether increased in lockstep with equities but remain largely range-bound, currently straddling $40k and $2.6k, respectively.
This week produced a relatively risk-on environment for crypto, as we saw web3, smart contract platforms, and DeFi all outperform currencies.
Source: Messari
Expectations for Year-End Interest Rates are Increasing
Below we chart the probability-weighted projected number of rate hikes for 2022. Clearly, things changed drastically towards the end of 2021. The number of expected rate hikes has risen from one in September 2021 to nearly eight following yesterday’s FOMC meeting. Please note that the line below includes the March rate hike.
Source: CME Group
The only constant in the market recently has been uncertainty. We think the chart below speaks to how quickly expectations around inflation, rates, and consequently, asset prices, can change. The probability of the target fed funds rate being above 150 ...Reports you may have missed
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