“The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.” – Vladimir Lenin

What was looking like a positive start to the week has taken a turn for the worse as US equity futures have given up much of their earlier gains in the last few minutes. It’s been a quiet morning so far in terms of economic data, and the only real fireworks are taking place at the short end of the Treasury curve and in the crypto space as bitcoin trades above $47K to its highest levels of the year. On the war front, Russia’s stalled advance has that country now narrowing its focus to the ‘liberation of Donbas’ so there is some optimism that talks this week could lead to some sort of peace breakthrough. It’s the last several days of what has been a very volatile quarter, so don’t be surprised to see more of it as we close out the quarter.

US stocks are still well off their highs from late 2021 and early 2022, but in the short-run, most are either close to or at short-term overbought readings. The S&P 500 moved into overbought territory last week for the first time since January 4th, and at current levels is just shy of taking out its early February highs – a level it stalled out twice at in the first ten days of February.