by Denitsa Tsekova and Lu Wang
Yahoo! Finance
With gold, oil and cryptocurrency rallying of late amid fresh demand for inflation hedges, the March CPI report unleashed a rout across Wall Street. Yields on 10-year Treasuries topped 4.5% for the first time since November while the S&P 500 closed around 1% lower. Energy companies were the best-performing names, a reminder of the post-pandemic playbook when inflation trading was ascendant. Brent crude climbed back above $90 as geopolitical tensions heightened.
With the commodity rally stoking broader cost pressures, a cohort of traders is starting to doubt that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will be able to engineer a soft economic landing, whereby the business cycle expands at a healthy clip just as inflation eases.