Ed Moya, Senior Market Analyst at OANDA, joins us to discuss how the bond and interest rate markets are behaving after the Fed started it’s rate hiking cycle last week, and how this may affect various sectors of the general US equities and GDP growth estimates moving forward.  We consider how many hikes the central bank guided for the balance of the year, whether this going to have much impact on record high levels of inflation, and how far along they’ll get before a market tantrum. In addition we discussed that the stimulus withdrawal symptoms, of the sugar high from Fed liquidity may play a role.

We reviewed that if businesses pass their higher input costs on to consumers, then this may hit their future earnings results, further impacting calls for slowing growth, when coupled with rising energy and a flattening yield curve. Ed feels that in this volatile environment of rising rates, that the financial sector will still benefit for a period, but that the consumer staples and cyber-security sectors may be the defensive area of the market that many investors rotate into to ride out the remaining choppiness.

We are seeing the commodities across the board from oil and natural gas, to base metals, and gold continue to rise this week, and discuss the macro factors and important takeaways in this sector. We wrap up a with a few thoughts on cryptocurrencies, with price moves in Bitcoin, competitor platforms going after Ethereum, and the US government’s desire to further regulate this financial sector.

Click here to follow along with Ed’s daily note over at OANDA.