The banks continue to give headache

Regardless of the FSOC's statement that the US banking system is resilient and First Citizens BancShares' failed deal to buy Silicon Valley Bank, the recent collapse of two regional North American banks fueled concerns of recession and broader contagion.

Bank stocks turned negative after three regulators said they favor tougher rules for banks with more than $100 billion in assets. Rate sensitive companies Microsoft, Alphabet, Apple and Tesla remained under pressure as yields rose. In other corporate news, Alibaba's US-listed shares rose 14.2% after announcing the holding company's plans to split its business into six critical units covering e-commerce, media and cloud Meanwhile, yesterday we had consumer confidence data in the United States which came out better than expected by the market, increasing to 104 the data expected by investors to 101.

INDICES

Major US indices closed below the flatline on Tuesday as investors remained cautious about the health of the US economy, while tech stocks were dragged down by higher rates. The Dow fell 0.1%, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 lost nearly 0.2% and 0.4%, respectively.

COMMODITIES

WTI: WTI crude futures rose to $74 a barrel on Wednesday, rising for the third straight session after API data showed US crude inventories unexpectedly declined by 6.1 million barrels last week, challenging expectations of an increase of 180,000 barrels. A dispute involving Kurdish authorities that halted around 400,000 barrels a day of oil exports from Turkey's Ceyhan port also added to supply concerns. In addition, OPEC's de facto leader Saudi Arabia has said the oil cartel should keep supplies stable through 2023 as it navigates a fragile recovery in global oil demand, recently marred by turmoil in the banking sector. Meanwhile, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said the country should increase exports to “friendly” countries, noting that supplies to India rose to levels not seen in more than two decades. China's crude oil imports are also expected to rise 6.2% in 2023 to 540 million tons, an annual forecast by a research unit of China National Petroleum Corp showed.

FOREIGN EXCHANGE

POUND: Sterling rose back to $1.23, not far from a seven-week high of $1,234 hit on March 23, after Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said on Monday that a further monetary tightening if signs of persistent inflationary pressure become evident. He also said there were “great strains” in the global banking sector, but added that banks in Britain were resilient and capable of supporting the economy. Last week the UK central bank raised its key bank rate for the 11th time in a row to 4.25%, leaving the door open for further rate hikes should inflation persist. Recent data had shown that Britain's inflation unexpectedly accelerated to 10.4% in February, well above the bank's target of 2%. In the US, the Federal Reserve expects to offer a rate hike of more than a quarter point this year, while markets have priced in a near 90% probability that the Fed will hold rates in May and anticipate a rate cut in July.

Chilean Peso : Follow our bearish view on the national currency and in search of support at $786 pesos. We will see if it reaches that point how the market will react, if it consolidates the sales and looks for new supports or a technical rebound is created that could generate resistance again at $836 or start a process of lower resistances. If we reach $786 and generate rebounds in that area, we could look for resistance at $800 and in progression. For now we see that $800 is being broken with some margin either to the upside or to the downside. We must closely monitor the behavior of the dollar index, which has been falling, as well as that of the markets that are slightly bullish; however, the feeling of systemic risk persists in the market.

CRYPTO MARKET

SafeMoon, the Blockchain project and DeFi platform based on the BNB Chain network, was the victim of a security breach that led to the theft of at least $9 million from its liquidity pool. This was reported by the platform through a message posted on their official Twitter account, where they indicated that their liquidity fund was compromised by an attacker, who took advantage of a breach to get hold of some USD $8.9 million that were extracted. Although at the moment there are not many additional details shared by the SafeMoon team, those who did reveal more information were the members of the Blockchain security firm, Peckshield, who indicated that the attacker could have taken advantage of a vulnerability that allowed him to artificially inflate the price of certain tokens.