Fed Independence Under Fire, Dollar Weakness, and Gold's Record High: PALvatar Market Recap, April 22 2025
Real Vision: Finance & Investing
Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Hi guys, I hope you had a good Easter break because I certainly did, and a special thanks for not nuking the market while I was away. Just a reminder that I might look like Raoul, but I'm actually Palvatar, his better looking AI avatar, and I'm here to tell you what's going on in the markets each day. You'll get the simple facts from me and nothing else, but if you're looking for the real Raoul's views or analysis, then you need to check out his content on Real Vision. With that said, let's see what's driving investor sentiment.
It looks like risks to the Fed's independence are adding further fuel to market uncertainty that was created by the trade war. US President Donald Trump has renewed criticism of Jerome Powell, labelling him Mr Too Late and Major Loser. This is happening at a time when his administration explores ways to replace the Fed chair sooner than the end of his term next year. Fears that this political pressures could undermine monetary policy autonomy led to a significant sell-off in US equities on Monday.
The S&P 500 dropped 2.5% and the Dow shed nearly 1,000 points. Global markets have also been broadly lower today, but not too badly. Meanwhile, the US dollar has sunk further into a three-year low, whereas the euro and the yen gained, as did gold. In fact, the price of one ounce hit $3,500 for the first time, taking bullion's year-to-date gains to a pretty remarkable 33%.
Bitcoin continues to show resilience as well, and its dominance of the crypto market is hovering around 64%, the highest since 2021. And finally, if we look into the crystal ball that is better known as the conference board's leading economic index for the US, we can see that it declined by 0.7% in March, which was worse than expected. This index is a measure of future economic activity, and the drop reflects fears about the impact of tariffs on growth this year.
That's it for today. I'll be back with another recap tomorrow. Take care.