Weekly Excerpt : February 14 to 18

Inflation | More bills than you can count

Inflation and solid job growth prompted a response from New York Fed President John Williams, who indicated that "it would be appropriate for the central bank to begin raising interest rates in March".

Also, as if in an early effort to combat inflation, during the week the market has favored Gold, taking the price of an ounce to levels of USD 1,900, which have not been seen since early November last year, possibly due to reports of rising price and inflation indices.

In addition, there still appears to be no clear date on when the Fed will take action to combat inflation, with purchases through open market operations for its "SOMA" account increasing by approximately USD 50.1 billion on the week, which continues to provide liquidity to the economy in the form of additional money.

Extra: Fun fact of the week.

Friday saw one of the largest expirations of options, around USD $2.2 Trillion between index and individual stock options. Similarly, analysts at Goldman Sachs have calculated that placement volumes as a proportion of total individual stock options are at their highest level since April 2020.