A weekend series of tweets from Bill Ackman, founder and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management:

Ackman is not alone in urging a rate hike of 50bps as soon as March. The labour market has improved and last week US headline CPI was reported at 7% y/y, its highest in nearly four decades (

Engineering a soft landing is one of the most-difficult tasks a macro policymaker can undertake but it’s what Chinese officials have been trying to do in housing.
Saturday’s Chinese home price data underscores the risks with prices up 2.6% y/y in a deceleration from 3.0% y/y in November.
As recently

Omicron has arrived in Beijing ahead of the Olympics.
City officials said today that a woman from Haidian district reported having a sore throat on Thursday
and a fever a day after. She tested positive for Covid-19 on Saturday
morning. She hadn’t left the city in the prior two weeks

The major US stock indices are closing mixed, but both the NASDAQ and the S&P index erased declines and are closing near the highs for the day. For the week, the major indices are all lower. The Dow closed lower and was down for the second straight dayNASDAQ closes higher despite higher yields with

US December retail sales -1.9% vs 0.0% expected
January prelim UMich consumer sentiment 68.8 vs 70.0 expected
ECB’s Lagarde: Monetary accommodation is still needed for inflation to settle at 2% over the medium term
Jamie Dimon: There could be six or seven rate hikes this year
Fe

EURUSD on the 4-hour chart

The EURUSD moved lower and lower today. In the process, the pair moved below what was a swing area going back to November. That area held earlier in the week.  
Moving below, increased the bearish bias and kicked the price lower. 
Looking at the 5 minute char

Treasury yields are at the highs of the day but that’s no obstacle for US stocks. The S&P 500 is nearly back to unchanged after falling by more than 40 points a few hours ago.
In FX, the dollar remains strong but is giving a bit back in the past hour. AUD/USD has tracekd up to 0.7213 from a low of 0

Lockdowns in China and thousands of flight cancellations have done nothing to dent buying demand in crude oil since late December. Now crude is threatening last year’s high of $85.41 per barrel.
It rose as high as $84.22 today and settled up $1.70 to $83.82. It’s been on a one-way run since hitting

Oil looks poised for a fourth straight week of gains and buyers are continuing to show plenty of appetite even as the week winds down. Price is now trading above $83 to its highest since 10 November:

The technical break above $80 is still running and that has been a supportive factor to the recen

Prior €2.0 billion; revised to €1.8 billion

The euro area trade balance shrunk in November to a deficit, with exports seen rising by 3.0% m/m while imports were up 4.5% m/m. In non-seasonally adjusted terms, trade balance was seen at -€8.3 billion on the month.