Bonds & Stocks
Government bonds rallied while stock futures struggled for direction as investors weighed whether central banks would push economies into recession with ongoing inflation-fighting campaigns. Futures on the S&P 500 fluctuated after the gauge suffered its worst week since March, while yields on benchmark US Treasury yields dropped five basis points. Germany's 10-year benchmark yield tumbled five basis points as data showed the business outlook deteriorated to the lowest seen this year as Europe's biggest economy struggles to emerge from recession.
Economy
Markets were unmoved by Fed Chair Jerome Powell's attempts to project hawkishness in his semiannual testimony to Congress. Markets continued to price for just one more 25-basis-point rate hike - with a higher probability of cuts thereafter than a follow-up hike as the June dot plot suggested. Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic made the case for keeping interest rates on hold at 5.25%. That's not the majority viewpoint on the FOMC.
World
Vladimir Putin managed to avert an attack on Moscow with an eleventh-hour deal with his mutinous mercenary commander. But the uprising has pierced his aura of total political control over Russia unlike any other event in his nearly quarter century in power.