IEA to Release Strategic Oil Reserves
Sticking with energy, WTI crude futures fell 5.6% in yesterday’s trading session after news came that the International Energy Agency – made up of 31 OECD members – committed to releasing 60m barrels of oil from their collective stockpiles. Of course, this follows the news last week that Washington is going to release 180m barrels of oil from its strategic reserves with the first half of this set for release between May and July. While the market saw a knee jerk reaction to the news, most analysts are doubtful that the release will be sufficient to adequately reduce prices across the market.

Bloomberg has more:

Hawkish Minutes from the FED
Following the publication of the FOMC’s minutes from their meeting on 16^th March, the market reacted to the Fed’s sentiments to tighten their monetary policy moving forward. These sentiments included a hawkish stance on asset purchasing involving a general agreement to cut $95bn a month from their asset holdings. Since the Fed’s bond-buying announcement in 2020, its holdings of treasuries and mortgage-backed securities have soared from $3.8tn to $8.5tn and hence plans to reduce this balance sheet in order to curtail inflation gained considerable attention. For example, equities took a hit with the S&P closing 1% lower while Nasdaq lost 2.2%. The yield on 10-year treasuries was also raised by 0.06 percentage points to see it hit 2.6% – its highest level in three years. The Fed’s hawkish tones also saw the DXY test 100 and despite not breaching this key level it nonetheless rose to near two-year highs.