Marketmind: TGIF – is it over yet?

After a wild ride, markets are in a calmer mood for now. Yet, it is Friday 13 and those prone to superstition would be forgiven for being extra cautious on a day renowned for being unlucky.

Given turbulence across asset classes this week, its not hard to see why. Look at the euro, it suffered its biggest one-day drop against the dollar on Thursday since March 2020, tumbling over 1%.

The S&P 500, which managed to claw back some ground late Thursday, is set for a sixth straight week of declines. That would mark the first time in over a decade the U.S. stock index would have done so, Deutsche Bank says.

And then theres the carnage in the crypto currency universe, with the market nursing large losses even if bitcoin has edged back above $30,000.

To be fair theres a lot of head scratching over why exactly some crypto currency tokens supposed to be pegged to the dollar faltered earlier this week.

One underlying reason for the pain there, as well as across risk assets, comes back to worries about high inflation and rising interest rates and whether this will bring a hard landing for the world economy.

U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Thursday the battle to control inflation would “include some pain,” repeating his expectation of half-percentage-point rate rises at the next two policy meetings.

The day ahead is relatively quiet on the data front, perhaps giving investors time to take stock of a wild week. But theres also the potential for more volatility.

In Europe, pressure to secure alternative gas supplies is increasing after Moscow imposed sanctions on European subsidiaries of state-owned Gazprom.

Gas prices surged on Thursday, with the key European benchmark gaining 12% as buyers were unsettled by the mounting threats to Europes supply given its high dependence on Russia.

Thats just one more headwind to the world economy rattled markets could do without.