Investors are watching out for a slew of speeches by central bank officials this week.

- Focus is now on an address by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Wednesday for more cues on U.S. monetary policy. Powell had struck an extremely hawkish tone during the Fed’s meeting last week.

- Fears are growing of the negative effects of continued rate hikes on global economic activity and the possibility of falling into the trap of recession.

- European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde stated that the central bank is expected to raise interest rates further over its "next several meetings" in a bid to tamp down soaring inflation.

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Equities:

- Wall Street slid deeper into a bear market on Monday, with the S&P 500 and Dow closing lower as investors fretted that the Federal Reserve's aggressive campaign against inflation could throw the U.S. economy into a sharp downturn.

- Ten of 11 S&P 500s sector indexes fell, led by 2.6% drops in real estate and energy. Gains in “Amazon” (O:AMZN) helped limit losses in the Nasdaq.

- The Nasdaq Composite dropped 73.8 points, or 0.65%, to 11,240.8, the S&P 500 lost 38.17 points, or 1.03%, to 3,655.05 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 327 points, or 1.10%, to 29,285 points.

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Currency Market:

-The Dollar Index dropped 0.5% to 113.500, not far removed from 114.58 reached on Monday, its strongest level since May 2002.

- EUR/USD rose 0.5% to 0.9650, bouncing from Monday’s 20-year low.

- GBP/USD rose 0.9% to 1.0783, bouncing after falling to an all-time low of 1.0327 on Monday, helped by Bank of England Governor “Andrew Bailey” attempting to soothe markets by stating that the bank will raise rates as much as necessary at its next meeting.

- USD/JPY fell 0.4% to 144.25, risk-sensitive AUD/USD rose 0.7% to 0.6501, while USD/CNY rose 0.1% to 7.1552.

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Commodities: Gold:

- Gold prices rose slightly from two-year lows on Tuesday as a rally in the dollar paused.

- Spot gold rose 0.6% to $1,640 an ounce, while gold futures were flat at $1,637.25 an ounce.

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Commodities: Oil:

- Oil prices rose more than 1% on Tuesday, after plunging to nine-month lows a day earlier, amid indications that producer alliance (OPEC+) may enact output cuts to avoid a further collapse in prices.

- Brent crude futures rose $1.17 to $85.23 per barrel. WTI crude futures were up $1.13 at $77.84 per barrel.

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