Market Recap: Crypto Holds Steady as Stocks Keep Tumbling

Today

Volatility in the marketplace has continued to climb as investors have become increasingly unnerved leading up to Fed Chair Jerome Powell's press conference tomorrow where he will discuss the central bank's plans regarding inflation.

Microsoft released a positive earnings report today and investors have begun selling off the stock showing that fundamentals are a lesser concern than macro factors like decreased capital and higher interest rates. Other noteworthy earnings reports this week include Tesla (TSLA), Visa (V) and Mastercard, all of which have become participants in the crypto industry at some level.

Volatility ahead of Fed Policy

Volatility has continued pacing upward as uncertainty grows among traders and investors ahead of tomorrow's press conference with Fed Chair Jerome Powell. In the last month, the VIX, an index that measures volatility on S&P 500 options, has increased over 62%, almost 37% of which was in the last five days alone.

CBOE Volatility Index

[stock_market_widget type="chart" template="basic" color="#5679FF" assets="^VIX" range="1mo" interval="1d" axes="true" cursor="true" range_selector="true" display_currency_symbol="true" api="yf"]

Earnings reports

Microsoft released a mostly positive earnings report and the market reacted by selling off the stock pushing it down 2.66% followed by another drop of nearly 6% in post-market trading, at the time of writing. Markets have strayed from typical logic following a positive earnings report with record Q1 sales and better-than-expectation jumps in other areas. The next major earnings report comes tomorrow with Tesla expected to beat estimates.

[stock_market_widget type="comparison" template="basic" color="#5679FF" assets="MSFT,TSLA,MA,V" fields="name,change_abs,change_pct,volume,dividend_yield,eps,pe_ratio,shares_outstanding,market_cap,chart" links="{'MSFT':{},'TSLA':{},'MA':{},'V':{}}" display_currency_symbol="true" api="yf" chart_range="1mo" chart_interval="1d"]

Top stories

Story: OpenSea is Reimbursing Users After Loophole Led to Steep NFT Losses

• The company said it’s working on improvements to mitigate risk, such as a new dashboard for its marketplace
• An OpenSea bug destroyed 42 NFTs last year

Story: Proprietary Crypto Trading Firm Taking on Investors For First Time

• The firm’s flagship strategy gained 50.8% last year, with less volatility than bitcoin
• Marketing efforts are mostly centered on high-net-worth individuals and family offices

Story: Grayscale Considering 25 New Digital Assets as Investments

• New assets Grayscale is considering include Algorand (ALGO), Axie Infinity (AXIE), Cosmos (ATOM), Fantom (FTM) and Helium (HNT)
• Grayscale most recently added payment network Amp (AMP) to its investment mix

Story: Crypto Industry Weighs Likelihood of Rising Rates as Fed Meeting Kicks Off

• Federal Reserve policy makers meet this week as markets reel and inflation rises
• Bitcoin’s rising correlation to equities could mean a further pullback in coming days

Tomorrow

Volatility has continued to increase amid uncertainty on how the Federal Reserve will deal with inflation. The potential for higher interest rates and decreased purchases from the Fed have investors worried that capital in markets could dry up and cause further drops in equities and crypto. The situation unfolding at the Russian and Ukrainian border has put increased pressure on the markets as well as investors fear the consequences of military action on assets.

---

Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.