APEX Market Wrap 20-24th March

Here is a preview of the APEX Market Wrap, where the most relevant digital asset and stock market news is delivered to your inbox. You can expect updates and analysis across top asset classes, keeping up with rapidly changing economic conditions.

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Stock Markets at a glance

A red week across stocks and indexes as sentiment remains poor in light of?the recent bank?failures and further fear of?systematic risk and contagion. Major central banks raise interest rates spanning from 25bps to 50bps as inflation shows no sign of slowing down (UK rate increases to 10.4% in Feb*). This positions central banks in a predicament?with the risk that further rate hikes will cause more pain within financial system where as on the contrary, if rate hikes are eased?- the progress on controlling?inflation may be lost and cause a second wave of inflationary pressure.

Cryptocurrencies at a glance

Digital assets cooled off towards the tail-end of the week after strong performance as banking failures sprouted across the US and EU financial system. BTC retreated to $27,489.24 at Friday close, with ETH dipping to $1,751.93. Whilst Bitcoin is still the best performing asset in 2023, it is clear that momentum?has slowed after the recent rally tested and beat local highs. With the hope that the banking sector is stabilising, some investors look to sell on the recent price action as hot data is released - showing?signs that inflation is still rampant.

Apex's Chart of the week

This particular chart which has been doing the rounds is of the the U.S. central bank’s liabilities and how they have increased by $393 billion in the last two weeks to $8.734 trillion. This brings the figure closer to the the all-time high of $8.95 trillion a year ago when the Fed started its quantitative tightening program and reduced its assets by $600 billion. Speculation over QE is hotly debated, however it is highlighted by CT that?Fed did not use new dollar reserves to purchase long-term Treasurys - instead, the central bank dropped its U.S. Treasury holdings by $3.5 billion to $7.937 trillion, suggesting that quantitative tightening is still in place to curb inflation.

Apex's Picture of the week

Open AI shared on the 24th of March that plugins will now be supported through their AI langauge model ChatGPT. It was shared that OpenAI plugins connect ChatGPT to third-party applications. These plugins enable ChatGPT to interact with APIs defined by developers, enhancing ChatGPT's capabilities and allowing it to perform a wide range of actions. Plugins can allow ChatGPT to do things like:

• Retrieve real-time information; e.g., sports scores, stock prices, the latest news, etc.
• Retrieve knowledge-base information; e.g., company docs, personal notes, etc.
• Perform actions on behalf of the user; e.g., booking a flight, ordering food, etc.

The first available plugins have been created by Expedia, FiscalNote, Instacart, KAYAK, Klarna, Milo, OpenTable, Shopify, Slack, Speak, Wolfram, and Zapier.

Open AI is continuing?the take the tech world by storm as they dominate the space with innovative advancements within Artificial Intelligence.?

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Disclaimer:?Our content is intended as information only and not financial advice in any shape or form. Please do your own analysis before making any investment based on your personal circumstances. Please take independent financial advice from a professional in relation with, or independently validate and verify, any information that you find on this post and wish to rely upon, whether for the purpose of making an investment decision or otherwise.?