March 4, 2022

Markets:

Stock futures headed for a lower open Friday morning.  Contracts on the S&P 500 fell to extend declines from Thursday. Treasury yields pulled back further as traders piled into safe havens including bonds and gold, and the benchmark 10-year yield dropped to below 1.8%. The risk-off tone Friday morning came amid news that Russia had seized Europe's largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine, after Russian shelling set fire to the facility earlier.

nflationary concerns have only compounded as crude oil prices spiked to hover at multi-year highs, with both West Texas intermediate and Brent crude oil prices rising more than 40% for the year-to-date and holding well over $100 per barrel. But for monetary policymakers, these concerns have had to be weighed against the uncertainty now generated by the crisis in Ukraine.

The U.S. economy added back the most jobs since July 2021 in February, with job growth accelerating even in the already-tight labor market as new Omicron cases from earlier this year came down.

February's jobs report presented yet another upside surprise to investors, and marked a fourteenth consecutive month of payroll growth. Last month, January's jobs report also showed many more jobs returned than expected, with more than 400,000 payrolls returning versus the 125,000 expected at the time. In Friday's report, January's job gains were also upwardly revised even further to show 481,000, compared to the 467,000 previously reported. And December's payrolls were upwardly revised again to 588,000, compared to the 510,000 posted in last month's revision.

Portfolio:

We enter todays session holding positions in ACH, PENN, and ITRM.  Potential busy session ahead for us as we want to position ourselves further for next week.  We are watching data carefully this morning and are curious to see price activity early on.  Be ready today.  Expect a new trade or two and further updates. Let's have a great session.