This week, we're diving into The Fed's latest moves and their impact on the economy. Our analysis will give you a peek into how the stock market might react to their monetary balancing act. Plus, we've got a fascinating deep dive into the historical returns of the market in various interest rate scenarios.


The Fed are trying to mitigate the risk of a systemic banking crash while keeping an eye on inflation. Their actions over the past 4 weeks have been contradictory.

The Fed has risen interest rates to combat inflation.

They have also expanded their balance sheet to backstop the bank's bond losses. This expansion of liquidity will increase inflation. 

It's unlikely that rates will remain at these high-levels for long. The market is pricing in rate cuts by July, 

Let's address the crucial question: How does it impact the stock market? 

We analyzed the forward returns of the market under different interest rate environments. We calculated the 3-year nominal forward returns and grouped them into buckets based on the interest rate of that time. Forward returns tell us the future return of the market at a given period in history, and we can use this to set performance expectations. Our dataset starts in 2000. The chart below clearly shows a strong relationship between interest rates and future market returns. 

The current interest rate lies in the 4% -> 5% range and suggests that nominal forward returns for the S&P 500 will be negative over the next 3 years. Diversification can protect investors. We generated a simple 

 with the S&P 500 and gold. It outperforms a buy-and-hold strategy by adding diversification to an investor's portfolio.

Additionally, we can examine the relationship between stocks and interest rates. Note that since 1995, there has been a positive correlation between stocks and interest rates, indicating that they have moved in tandem. This is a surprising discovery. We we can see in the chart below, the mean correlation is not particularly strong. 

During periods of financial distress, when the Fed has cut rates to boost a struggling stock market, the correlation has peaked. We have identified two previous high-correlation periods, which were the Great Financial Crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic. The present-day correlation has just turned negative.

As the Fed continues to increase interest rates, regional banks are coming under added pressure. The reasons for this are many:

With the rise in interest rates, banks are amassing unrealized losses on their bond investments. A significant number of banks bought held-to-maturity bonds, whose worth has declined in line with the higher interest rates available today. 

Nevertheless, this circumstance alone is not fatal. It is only if depositors come looking to withdraw their cash that the bond losses have to be realised. This is exactly what has happened with many of the regional banks, who deposits have not been guaranteed by the Fed. Illiquidity and even insolvency has plagued the smaller banks.

This pain has been compounded by the fact that banks cannot offer returns comparable to short-term treasury bills, and therefore depositors have been rushing for the exits. 

The likely impact of the banking crisis is a consolidation of capital into the hands of the largest U.S. banks such as J.P. Morgan and City Bank, as investors will pour assets into the 'too big to fail' banks.

If you are interested in creating a diversified portfolio with multiple asset classes, you can use our 

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A market update for March 27, 2023. We'll look at the market performance through the lens of interest rates, equities, and cryptocurrency.

8. Market Review - March 27, 2023

In this week’s market review, we’ll look at the banking crisis which is currently unfolding in Europe and the USA. We’ll discuss Bitcoin’s outperformance and see how it's performed as a hedge against the bank stocks.


The potential for financial contagion remains prevalent. Credit Suisse, a significant international bank, has become the latest institution to face trouble, and was recently acquired by its domestic competitor, UBS Group, on March 20th. If Credit Suisse had collapsed, it could have caused significant strain on the global banking sector. To prevent such an outcome, the Swiss National Bank has agreed to provide $100 billion in liquidity to ensure the bank's survival.

It's important to note that Credit Suisse has been underperforming for a considerable amount of time. Its average quarterly net income over the last five years has been negative $100 million, and the company has incurred losses of nearly $10 billion in just the last two years. The company's stock price has reflected its poor performance and has dropped almost 99% since 2006, the beginning of our dataset. Credit Suisse's all-time high market capitalization was nearly $65 billion, but it was sold to UBS Group for just $3 billion. Furthermore, its assets reached a peak of $1.24 trillion in 2008, but by 2023, they had fallen by over 50% to $575 billion.

Investors have been closely watching the U.S banking sector over the past two weeks, as it has exhibited a systemic weakness. As we mentioned last week, the Federal Reserve intervened by guaranteeing deposits beyond the $250,000 maximum coverage provided by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). This move helped ease some of the market panic. 

However, comments made by U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, at a Senate committee hearing last week, did little to instil confidence in the health of regional banks. Yellen indicated that uninsured deposits would only be guaranteed in cases where their collapse would pose a "systemic risk." She reaffirmed the "too big to fail" theory, stating that only depositors of banks whose collapse could threaten the entire banking system would be guaranteed. As a result of this uncertainty, the regional banking sector has experienced a significant decline of 8% in the past few trading sessions.

Despite the fear over the banking system, the major indices had very mixed results in the prior week. The Nasdaq-100 (QQQ) experienced nearly a 6% increase, soaring 14.7% in 2023. The S&P 500 (SPY) saw a healthy 1.44% rise while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA) and the Russell-2000 (IWM) saw declines of -0.12% and 2.81% respectively. There is an 18% differential between the Nasdaq and the Dow in 2023.

QQQ's strong performance can be linked to the anticipated implementation of quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve. Recently, the Fed's balance sheet experienced a significant increase of $300 billion, effectively reversing over five months of quantitative tightening in one swift move. This newly available money is intended to assist commercial banks in offsetting their substantial bond losses, which have already caused the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank just a few days ago.

Let’s see how Bitcoin has performed under the pressure of its first banking crisis. To contrast some of the bearish news in the stock and bond markets, Bitcoin has had its best week in 5 years, putting up a 31.1% increase.

Bitcoin transactions are decentralised and peer-to-peer, they have no counterparty risk. These attributes are important during a banking crisis where contagion can spread and threaten numerous institutions simultaneously. We have charted Bitcoin’s correlation against the U.S banks on a rolling 1-month basis. Bitcoin had its lowest correlation reading in over 18 months, suggesting that it has provided some protection to investors during the recent banking crisis. Is this just another bear market rally or the beginning of a new bull market in cryptocurrency?

Smooth out the volatility and invest in Bitcoin with a long-term 

. The smart and steady way to invest in the future of money!

A market update for March 20, 2023. We'll look at the market performance through the lens of equities and cryptocurrency.

7. Market Review - March 20, 2023

In this market review, we'll examine one of the most significant weeks in finance since the Great Financial Crisis in 2008.

The Fed steps in to backstop US bank deposits.

You can visit the previous market review 

We are in the eye of the biggest financial storm since 2008, which reached a critical point towards the end of the previous week. Silvergate (SI), Silicon Valley Bank (SIVB), and Signature Bank (SBNY) all failed, causing widespread concern about financial contagion. By market close on Friday, SI, SIVB, and SBNY had drawdown 99%, 95%, and 80% from their respective all-time highs.

The banking crisis sparked fear within the broader market. The Russell-2000 index suffered a severe drop of -8%, while both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 gave up most of their gains from 2023, experiencing a decline of approximately -4.5%. In contrast, the Nasdaq-100 experienced a smaller reversal of -3.7%. It remains in positive territory for the year.

In 2020-2021, Silicon Valley Bank purchased US Treasuries when interest rates were almost zero. The interest rates have surged to 5%, causing a significant decrease in the market value of these bonds. As a result, when depositors attempted to withdraw their funds, the bank experienced a classic bank-run. They were forced to recognize enormous losses on their bond portfolio. Silicon Valley Bank eventually failed to have sufficient cash to meet customer withdrawal demands.

The rise in interest rates is putting huge pressure on the financial system. It looks like a Fed pivot might be coming earlier than originally anticipated, given the turmoil in the banking system. The market is expecting rate cuts by the year end, with a probability of 92.8% by December 13, 2023, according to the 

In the meantime, the U.S Federal Reserve announced emergency measures to guarantee deposits of Silicon Valley Bank’s and Signature Bank’s customers. The Fed 

 that it will make up to $25Bn available to US depository institutions, essentially backstopping losses on U.S. Treasuries, agency debt, and mortgage-backed securities.

These bank failures are the biggest since the Great Financial Crisis of 2008. While none of these banks were considered “Too Big to Fail”, they were big enough to cause contagion in the markets. SIVB and SBNY were the 16th and 28th biggest banks when measured by assets. The combined assets of SIVB, SI, and SBNY is $330 billion, about 50% of Lehman Brothers in 2008.

The Fed’s intervention may have curtailed the banking sector’s distress in the short term but they are stuck with a dilemma that involves two unpleasant alternatives.

The Fed is mandated to curb inflation therefore will need to continue to raise rates.

Rates hikes will put the banks under greater pressure due to increasing losses on their bond allocations.

It seems that the sought after “soft-landing” is becoming an unlikely possibility.

History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme.

Last week, we compared the current bear market with that of 1973 and 2008 drawdowns. We are going to expand our analysis. We've plotted the 2023 and 2008 drawdown, VIX, and risk-free rate data below. As we can see, the current bear market shares some similarities from that of 2008. During the GFC, rates were falling alongside the market. However, rates have been rising quickly in this bear market. The VIX (volatility index) spiked following the failure of Lehman Brothers and we’ve also seen a massive uptick in the VIX this past week, going from $19 to $26.

The contagion did not stop at trad-fi. Silvergate, Silicon Valley Bank, and Signature Bank all served cryptocurrency companies in the USA. Last year, the Terra-Luna UST ponzi collapsed into a stablecoin death-spiral, evaporating tens of billions worth of value on the Terra network. 

Crypto investors are acutely aware of the impact of a stablecoin depegging event. USD Coin (USDC) is digital stablecoin pegged to the USD. Each USDC is backed by one dollar or a dollar-denominated asset with equivalent value held in accounts at regulated U.S. financial institutions. They held $3.3Bn or about 8% of their reserves at Silicon Valley Bank. USDC began to depeg shortly after the news of their exposure broke. The value of 1 USDC fell as low as $0.88 before the Fed’s intervened and it rallied back to $1.

Bitcoin maximilalists have been shouting about the benefits of decentalisation and self-custodianship for years now. They have been waiting for an opportunity like the one that just presented itself, for the asset to shine. Going into the weekend, Bitcoin dropped below $20k for the first time since January. It has since rallied over 30% to ~$26,500.

There are a few reasons why Bitcoin might have risen at the weekend, including

Expectation of Fed pivot and quantitative easing and therefore investors want harder assets like Gold and BTC

Did you know that you can research, build, and trade your own strategy ideas with STRATxAI's pro tools, 

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A market update for March 14, 2023. We'll look at the current banking crisis in the USA.

6. Market Review - March 14, 2023

In this weeks market review, we’ll provide an overview of the current state of the financial markets. We’ll compare the current drawdown with its historical counterparts. You can visit last weeks market review 

We'll start with a look at notable performances over the past week. 

Last week saw a positive reversal of fortune for the main indices, which traded sideways in February. The Nasdaq-100 (QQQ) rose by 2.68%, while the S&P 500 (SPY), Russell 2000 (IWM), and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA) all recorded gains of roughly 2%. The previous week saw a significant drawdown, with many of the main indices recording their worst week of the year. 

The Nasdaq-100 has shown remarkable strength this year, bouncing back from a 33% decline in 2022. It is worth examining how this year's performance compares against historical data. Notably, the Nasdaq-100 has achieved its third strongest start to the year since 2006. In the two instances prior to this, when the index had a better start to the year in 2012 and 2019, it increased 18% and 39%, respectively. It's a promising sign.

Shifting the tone from the previous section, it's important to note that we are still in the midst of a bear market. To gain perspective, we have examined previous drawdowns and compared them to the current one. The similarities between the current and past bear markets are noteworthy. Presently, we are 300 days into this bear market, and the returns are nearly on par with those of the Dot Com and 1973 drawdowns. The bottom came in at close to -50% on these occasions. Despite unique financial conditions in each case, the chart provides valuable information to manage expectations.

It's crucial for investors to recognize and invest in style factors, which are an important asset class. Let's examine the previous year's performance of several prominent style factors, including Value, Quality, Low Volatility, Dividend Yield, and Momentum. As illustrated in the chart below, Dividend Yield, Low-Volatility, and Value have demonstrated superior performance. In an environment of higher volatility and high interest rates, investors tend to seek safer assets or cash flows with shorter durations.

Another week of losses for cryptocurrency as it continues to display short-term weakness after a red-hot start to the year. On Friday, March 5th, Bitcoin experienced a rapid 5% drop in one hour due the fear caused by the likely collapse of yet another crypto institution, Silvergate Bank. Subsequently, Bitcoin slipped below its 50-day moving average for the first time since the beginning of the year. 

By the end of the week, Bitcoin had declined by -3.4%. Other significant cryptocurrencies, such as Ethereum (ETH) and Binance Coin (BNB), also witnessed a 3.4% fall, while Polkadot recorded a weekly return of -9.1%. The returns of the major cryptocurrencies are listed below, for various periods.

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A market update for March 07, 2023. We'll look at the market performance through the lens of equities, ETFs, and cryptocurrency.

5. Market Review - March 07, 2023

In this weeks market review, we’ll provide an overview of the current state of the financial markets. We’ll show that now is an opportune time for the style factor 

. Read down to where we ask the big question "

" and investigate the mania of meme stocks. You can visit last weeks market review 

Let's begin with a look at notable performances over the past week. 

Last week, the stock market experienced a significant wobble with the S&P 500 (SPY), Nasdaq-100 (QQQ), Russell 2000 (IWM), and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA) all recording losses of nearly -3%. This was the 

. While the S&P 500, Nasdaq-100 and the small-cap Russell 2000 are still positive in 2023, they have retraced almost 50% of their January gains. The Dow has fallen into negative territory.

Every sector was negative for the week. Transportation was the best performer, suffering only half a percentage point decline. Technology Services sector posting the largest loss of over 4%.

Seasonality charts can be used to identify patterns or trends in a stocks performance during specific times of the year. We've plotted the average monthly S&P 500 return over the past 17 years. 

Historically, March has been a positive month for the S&P 500, returning 1.5% on average

. Will we see the trend continue in 2023?

Value investing has been shown to deliver strong returns over the long run, as value investors are able to identify and invest in undervalued or cheap companies that eventually outperform the market. With that being said, value has largely underperformed over the past decade and many investors have been quick to proclaim its demise, a quick Google search will yield hundreds of articles claiming as much. We have conducted an analysis on the spread of value in relation to the Price to Book (P/B) ratio. Additionally, we have charted the performance of a long/short value portfolio created by Fama-French. 

The value spread is determined by calculating the average P/B ratio of the top decile (most expensive stocks) and dividing it by the bottom decile (cheapest stocks). A high value spread indicates strong potential for value investors, while a low spread suggests the opposite. When the value spread declines, long/short value portfolios perform well. In February 2021, the value spread reached its peak and has since decreased significantly. During this period, the Fama-French value factor (High Minus Low) produced a return of over 50%. 

The spread is still very wide, at the 80th percentile, and a narrowing of this value will return even greater gains. 

A similar phenomenon can be observed with a long-only value strategy, 

 if you’d like to check out how it performed.

The meme stock craze of the past few years has been one of the most captivating phenomenons to observe. In case you happened to miss it, in 2021 and 2022, a group of individual investors on Reddit's WallStreetBets and Twitter coordinated buying certain stocks that were heavily shorted by institutional investors. The most prominent meme stocks include GameStop, AMC Entertainment, BlackBerry, Nokia, and Bed Bath & Beyond. 

we created a portfolio of the top 10 most popular meme stocks starting in January 2021

. Within a few months, the portfolio generated spectacular returns, almost quintupling by July 2021. However, it has since experienced a lengthy and 

Buying meme stocks is not a clever investment strategy. They are highly volatile and lack solid fundamentals. Many investors will not be able to stomach either the volatility or the drawdowns associated with meme stocks. A systematic approach with solid diversification is the best for any successful retail investor.

Similarly, shorting meme stocks is ill-advised, the hype and speculation can drive up prices and create short squeezes. Some sophisticated institutional investors suffered huge losses shorting meme stocks. 

Last week was another volatile week for cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin had it’s worst week of 2023, falling 5.5% after hitting a 6-month high of over $25,000 on February 21. Ethereum, Binance Coin, Polkadot, and Ripple all experienced large declines also, varying from -2.4 to -9.3%.

A market update for February 28, 2023. We'll look at the market performance through the lens of equities, ETFs, and cryptocurrency.

Market Review - February 28, 2023

A well-known phenomenon in the stock market known as "loser's reversal" typically occurs in January. This means that stocks with negative price momentum in the previous year tend to perform better in January. We put this thesis to the test in the 2022/2023 market, and the results were quite surprising. We selected the best 100 and worst 100 performers from 2022 and tracked their performance in 2023 so far. While both groups had positive returns, the "losers" from 2022 delivered an astonishing year-to-date return of +44.5% and reached a peak of +70% in January. 

We take a sharp look at the recent state of the financial markets, critically examining how inflation, the Federal Funds Rate and the returns of the S&P 500 are inter-related. Digging in and exploring the correlations of various asset classes. Cryptocurrency focus is a technical analysis of Bitcoin. You can visit last weeks market review 

Can the Fed get inflation under control without derailing the economy?The Federal Reserve has the ability to significantly impact the market by adjusting interest rates. When interest rates increase, it can lead to reduced market liquidity and higher borrowing costs for both businesses and consumers. The chart below compares interest and inflation rates with S&P drawdowns since 1965. It indicates that interest rates typically trail inflation, and that the S&P 500 has historically experienced its largest drawdowns during periods of relatively high interest rates. Notable instances where interest rates exceeded current levels include the period leading up to the 2007-2008 Financial Crisis and the Dot Com Bubble in 2000. Based purely on these two data points, it could be argued we are unlikely for the S&P 500 to hit only a 25% drawdown, as was observed in October 2022. However we need to look at today and really consider if we are in as much of a tech meltdown as the dot-com bubble and it also seems sensible to suggest we certainly are not in the leveraged environment of the GFC.

Notice the extraordinarily high inflation rate of the 1970s, the average print was 7% over the decade. Many investors are pointing to similarities between the 1970s and today. The US inflation rate for January 2023 came in at 6.4%, down slightly from 6.5% in December, but less than market forecasts of 6.2%. It’s the lowest reading since October of 2021 but still much higher than the Fed's 2% target. 

By analyzing the correlation matrix of various asset classes over the past year, we have found that among the equity-based asset classes (market, energy sector, momentum, low vol, value, quality, and yield), only the energy sector showed a limited diversification of risk from the market. On the other hand, gold exhibited almost no correlation with any other asset class. When it comes to Bitcoin, the strongest correlation was observed with the quality style factor.

The indices experience mixed returns last week, the Russell 2000 (IWM) saw a 1.5% gain while the Nasdaq-100 (QQQ), S&P 500 (SPY), and Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA) gave up the gains made earlier in the week, to remain flat for the period.

Looking at sector performance, we can observe that the technology services sector is leading the way this year with an impressive average return of 29%. It is followed by consumer durables and health services, both of which have positive returns of around 20%. In contrast, the energy minerals and utilities sectors are lagging behind with an average return of approximately 2%.

To provide further insight into sector performance, we have graphed the percentage of stocks in each sector with positive year-to-date returns. Consumer durables sector leads with more than 60% of its stocks exhibiting positive momentum. Meanwhile, the technology services sector has fallen back to fifth place, from the previous chart, indicating that the year-to-date returns in tech are concentrated in a smaller number of stocks (e.g TSLA, META).

Last week, the Low Vol and Dividend Yield factors delivered strong performances, with positive returns of 0.6% and 0.47%, respectively. Although Value also recorded a positive return, whilst not the stand-out this week, it has been consistently outperforming this year. On the other hand, Quality experienced a negative return of 0.14%.

If you'd like to learn more about equity style factors then you can 

The previous week witnessed a surge in cryptocurrency prices, with all major currencies experiencing gains. Bitcoin and Ethereum saw a rise of 15%, while BNB and Polkadot recorded returns of 10.6% and 20.9%, respectively. Bitcoin's increase places it in the top 13 percentile of all weekly returns since late 2017, when our dataset begins. Historically, when Bitcoin has performed similarly well, it has returned an average of 2.22% in the subsequent 4 weeks.

Taking a technical analysts approach to Bitcoin, it has just completed a golden cross, which is the first time since September 2021. Could this be the start of the next bull run? There are more pronounced macro headwinds to overcome this time.

A market update for February 22, 2023. We'll look at the market performance through the lens of interest rates, equities, ETFs, and cryptocurrency.

3. Market Review - February 22, 2023

Last week, in our inaugural market review, we analyzed one of the hottest starts to the year in financial markets. We delved into the influence of the U.S. Federal Reserve's intervention on the market and examined the performance of various asset classes. You can read the 

This week, we will dive deeper into the historical impact of interest rate changes and how it impacts market performance. Once again, we will inspect the recent performance of various asset classes and strive to provide some clarity about the current financial landscape. 

The Federal Reserve has tempered its interest rate increases in pursuit of a "soft landing." We've analyzed past instances where the Fed has paused rate hikes, as depicted in the red highlights on the chart below. From our analysis of the two previous occasions, we observe that the market initially reacts positively and surges to new record highs. However, these gains tend to be short-lived, and sharp declines of 55% and 34% were experienced in 2009 and 2020. Will we witness a similar pattern this time?

The next Consumer Price Index (CPI) print will be available tomorrow, Tuesday 14th February. If the downward trend continues we can expect rates to remain static.

Last week, the Nasdaq-100 (QQQ), S&P 500 (SPY), Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA), and Russell 2000 (IWM) all witnessed different degrees of pullbacks. The Russell 2000, which tracks small-cap stocks, experienced the steepest decrease at -3.39%. The Nasdaq suffered a reversal of 2%. Meanwhile, the SPY saw a drop of more than 1%, while the Dow remained flat for the week.

From the viewpoint of a technical analyst, the S&P 500 appears to be in a robust state. On January 17th, it formed a "golden cross," where the 50-day Simple Moving Average crossed over the 200-day Simple Moving Average. During the previous golden cross in July 2020, the S&P 500 experienced a surge of more than 50% to new all-time highs. However, it is important to note that the current market conditions are vastly different from those of the Covid era, as interest rates are no longer near zero and the Federal Reserve's monetary stimulus is not as prevalent. While a repeat of the 2020/2021 performance is not likely, these technical indicators are still noteworthy.

If you have not been hiding in the wilderness, you probably heard something about ChatGPT. Developed by OpenAI, ChatGPT is a language model that uses deep learning to generate human-like text. It has taken the world by storm. ChatGPT crossed 1 million users just one week after its launch in November 2022. To put that into perspective, Instagram took 2 months to achieve the same feat. ChatGPT is reported to have over 13 million daily active users as of today. Microsoft invested $10B in OpenAI, acquiring 46% of the business. 

Google has held a monopoly on search since its inception. Microsoft just announced that they will incorporate the technology powering ChatGPT into their Bing search engine and Edge browser. This development will impact Google's dominance over search. Google responded last week with the announcement of Bard AI. During a live demo of the product, the application gave an incorrect answer to a question. Google's share price dropped dramatically on Tuesday and Wednesday, wiping $177 billion off its market cap last week. This is equivalent to the combined market cap of the smallest 580 public traded stocks in our STRATxAI universe.

Retail investors love Tesla, and they will be delighted by its recent performance. After a large decline in 2022, Tesla has made a remarkable recovery with its stock price surging 82% year-to-date. It was last week that the trading volume of Tesla's shares surpassed that of the SPY, which tracks the S&P 500 index. Our analysis revealed that it is an extremely rare occurrence that an individual stock's liquidity surpasses that of SPY.

Let's redirect our attention to the style factors. A review of the returns of the most popular style factors - Value, Quality, Low Volatility, Dividend Yield, and Momentum - reveals that Value and Quality are outpacing the rest with impressive positive returns year to date. Meanwhile, although Low Volatility and Dividend Yield are still in positive territory this year, they are significantly lagging behind the other factors.

The weekly sector performance shows a reversal from the 

. The Retail Trade and Technology Services sectors saw large declines while the Energy Minerals sector saw a +3% increase, almost standing alone with a positive weekly trend.

The crypto market experienced some substantial declines too, with Bitcoin falling 4.5% and Ethereum 6.2%. 

A market update for February 13, 2023. We'll look at the market performance through the lens of interest rates, equities, ETFs, and cryptocurrency.

2. Market Review - February 13, 2023

2022 was one of the most turbulent years for investors in recent times. Trillions of dollars were wiped off the equity and bond markets. The aftermath of the response to the Covid-19 pandemic, supply chain issues, and the Russia-Ukraine war caused a spike in inflation. The resulting interest rate increases ushered in a period of higher volatility and fear. Few asset classes were left unscathed. The S&P 500 was down almost 20%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq saw a 33% decline.

2023 has been a blistering year so far for the financial markets. The price action is in large part due to the U.S. Federal Reserve's interest rate changes. The Fed's Dual Mandate of maximum employment and low inflation prompted a 4% increase in interest rates in 2022 to combat the runaway inflation. The inflation figures have been swiftly falling, so the Fed curbed its most recent interest rate hike to just 0.25% with the hopes of avoiding a prolonged recession. The markets reacted as expected. Risk-on assets have soared, making up for some of the losses from the previous year. 

The NASDAQ-100 (QQQ), S&P 500 (SPY), Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA), and the Russell 2000 (IWM) have seen varying degrees of positive returns. The Nasdaq leads the way with a substantial 15% increase year-to-date, followed closely by the small-cap Russell 2000 at 13%. The S&P 500 spirited a healthy 7.8% return since the turn of the year and finally, the Dow has lagged behind with a positive 2.4% gain.

The main question on the top of investors' minds is whether this is a bear market rally or a continuation of the previous decade's unprecedented bull run. Everyone's eyes will be firmly fixated on the Fed's actions in the coming months, to see if they can succeed in their hopes of a 'soft landing'. 

Style factors are another important asset class that many investors should be aware of and have exposure to. Let's take a look at the year-to-date performance of some of the most prevalent style factors - Value, Quality, Low Volatility, Dividend Yield, and Momentum. To analyze these factors we took a range of different ETFs with the largest market capitalizations from each style factor. 

Value has continued its impressive 2022 run with a strong start to the current year. Historically, Value has performed well in high-interest rate environments as investors look for nearer-term duration cash flows that are generated by stocks with low earnings multiples. Similarly, Low-Vol has been shown to provide good downside protection against broader market declines and higher volatility regimes. Quality has had a bumper January also.

There are 20 high-level sectors in the U.S. equities market. These include Technology Services, Retail, Transport, and so on. Let's take a look at the top-performing sectors of the past week, ending Friday 3rd February.

In accordance with the factor and market indices data, we can see that the Technology Services sector outperformed last week, increasing over 6% on average across 576 stocks, adding almost $730Bn to the combined market capitalization of these stocks. Meta saw a 23% increase in its share price in the past week alone. It still lags it's all-time high by almost 50%.

As we stated in the introduction to this piece, risk-on assets are soaring and cryptocurrency may hold the title of the most risk-on asset class. Bitcoin is up almost 40% year-to-date.

Bitcoiners worldwide are closely monitoring the asset's correlation with equities. In the 2022 downturn, it experienced a draw down roughly twice that of the Nasdaq. Bitcoin is still reasonably highly correlated with equities while being uncorrelated to gold. Let's see how its performance correlates with the S&P 500, Big Tech, and Gold.

Worried about inflation? You can research, build, and trade your own inflation-beating strategy ideas with STRATxAI's pro-tools, 

A market review for February 6, 2023. Review of market performance year-to-date through the lens of equities, ETFs, and cryptocurrency.

1. Market Review - February 6, 2023

Frequent reviews of the financial markets covering equities, ETFs, factors, and cryptocurrency. The latest reports, research and outlook from STRATxAI.