A measure of wholesale prices increased less than expected in March, providing some potential relief from worries that inflation will hold higher for longer than many economists had expected.

The producer price index rose 0.2% for the month, less than the 0.3% estimate from the Dow Jones consensus and not as much as the 0.6% increase in February, according to a release Thursday from the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.

However, on a 12-month basis, the PPI climbed 2.1%, the biggest gain since April 2023, indicating pipeline pressures that could keep inflation elevated.

Excluding food and energy, the core PPI also rose 0.2%, meeting expectations. Excluding trade services from the core level, the increase was 0.2% monthly but 2.8% from a year ago.

The release comes a day after the BLS reported that consumer prices again rose more than expected in March, raising concerns that the Federal Reserve will be unable to lower interest rates anytime soon.

On the producer price side, March’s gain was pushed by services, which saw a 0.3% increase on the month. Within that category, the index for securities brokerage and other investment-related fees jumped 3.1%.

Conversely, goods prices decreased 0.1%, flipping a 1.2% increase in February. Final demand costs for energy, which have been on the rise lately, actually fell 1.6% on the month. However, wholesale prices for final demand food and goods less food and energy climbed 0.8% and 0.1%, respectively.

Though prices have been rising at the pump, the final demand index for gasoline fell 3.6%. That contrasted with the consumer price index, which showed gasoline up 1.7% on the month.

Markets showed little reaction to the data, with futures tied to major stock indexes slightly higher though Treasury yields declined.

In other economic news Thursday, initial filings for jobless benefits fell to 211,000, a decline of 11,000 from the previous week’s upwardly revised level and below the 217,000 estimate from Dow Jones.

Continuing claims, which run a week behind, increased to 1.82 million, up 28,000 for the period, according to the Labor Department release.

The economic data points are being watched closely as the Federal Reserve contemplates its next moves on monetary policy.

Wednesday’s CPI release jolted markets, which had been anticipating an aggressive series of interest rate cuts this year. The report showed annual inflation running at 3.5%, well above the Fed’s 2% target.

The market now is pricing in the possibility of just two cuts this year, likely not starting until September, according to CME Group data.

Inflation rose again in February, keeping the Federal Reserve on course to wait at least until the summer before starting to lower interest rates.

The consumer price index, a broad measure of goods and services costs, increased 0.4% for the month and 3.2% from a year ago, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday. The monthly gain was in line with expectations, but the annual rate was slightly ahead of the 3.1% forecast from the Dow Jones consensus.

Excluding volatile food and energy prices, the core CPI rose 0.4% on the month and was up 3.8% on the year. Both were one-tenth of a percentage point higher than forecast.

While the 12-month pace is off the inflation peak in mid-2022, it remains well above the Fed’s 2% goal as the central bank approaches its two-day policy meeting in a week.

A 2.3% increase in energy costs helped boost the headline inflation number. Food costs were flat on the month, while shelter rose another 0.4%.

The BLS reported that the increases in energy and shelter amounted to more than 60% of the total gain. Gasoline jumped 3.8% on the month while owners’ equivalent rent, a hypothetical gauge of what homeowners could get renting their properties, rose 0.4%.

“Inflation continues to churn above 3%, and once again shelter costs were the main villain. With home prices expected to rise this year and rents falling only slowly, the long-awaited fall in shelter prices isn’t coming to the rescue any time soon,” said Robert Frick, corporate economist at Navy Federal Credit Union. “Reports like January’s and February’s aren’t going to prompt the Fed to lower rates quickly.”

Airline fares posted a 3.6% increase, apparel prices rose 0.6% and used vehicles were up 0.5%. Medical care services, which helped feed a higher-than-expected CPI increase in January, decreased 0.1% last month.

The year-over-year increase for headline CPI was 0.1 percentage point higher than January, while core was one-tenth of a point lower.

Markets showed little initial reaction after the news broke, with futures tied to major stock averages as well as Treasury yields slightly higher.

While the 12-month pace is off the inflation peak in mid-2022, it remains well above the Fed’s 2% goal as the central bank approaches its two-day policy meeting in a week.

Fed officials in recent weeks both have signaled that rate cuts are likely at some point this year and expressed caution about letting up too soon in the battle against high prices. The statement after the January meeting indicated that policymakers need “greater confidence” that inflation is moving back to target.

Chair Jerome Powell, in congressional testimony last week, echoed those concerns, though he did mention that the Fed is probably “not far” from the point where it can start easing up on monetary policy.

Tuesday’s report “leaves Fed officials some way from attaining the ‘greater confidence’ needed to begin cutting interest rates,” said Paul Ashworth, chief North America economist at Capital Economics.

For financial markets, the shift in the Fed stance from its apparent policy pivot in late 2023 has meant a repricing on the pace of rate cuts. Where futures traders entered the year expecting cuts to start coming in March, with six or seven total on the year, they have pushed out the first reduction to June, with three to follow, assuming cuts in quarter percentage point increments.

A bustling economy has helped the Fed focus on incoming data and allowed policymakers to avoid having to rush to lower rates. Gross domestic product expanded at a 2.5% annualized pace in 2023 and is on pace to increase at a 2.5% pace in the first quarter of 2024, according to the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow tracker.

One key ingredient in that growth has been a resilient consumer boosted by a strong labor market. The economy added another 275,000 nonfarm jobs in February, though the increase skewed heavily to part-time jobs and the unemployment rate rose to 3.9%.

Such strength can be a double-edged sword: While the growth in the face of aggressive rate hikes has bought the Fed time on policy, it also raises concerns that inflation could be more durable than expected.

Housing costs in particular have caused concern.

Shelter comprises about one-third of the CPI weighting and has been slow to decelerate, at least according to the BLS measure. Fed officials see rental prices coming down through the year, and other measures outside the CPI computation of owners-equivalent rent have shown easing price pressures.

Correction: The BLS reported that the increases in energy and shelter amounted to more than 60% of the total gain. An earlier version misstated a sector.

Egypt’s pound hit a record low against the dollar on Wednesday after its central bank hiked interest rates by 600 points and devalued the currency.

The steps were meant to facilitate an agreement with the International Monetary Fund, which is expected to confirm the extension of its current $3 billion financial support package for Egypt.

The Egyptian pound was trading at roughly 50 to the dollar following the announcement, from 30.85 previously, according to LSEG data. The country’s key interest rate now stands at 27.25%, the central bank said Wednesday.

The development “shows that policymakers are committed to the turn back toward economic orthodoxy. This is likely to pave the way for an IMF deal within hours,” James Swanston, a Middle East and North Africa economist at London-based Capital Economics, wrote in a research note.

“This appears to be a positive step for Egypt on the path out of its current crisis,” he wrote.

This is a breaking news story, and it is being updated.

This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our new, international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.

A fierce winning streakU.S. stocks rose Tuesday to hit fresh winning streaks, their longest in three years. But Asia-Pacific markets were mixed Wednesday. Japan’s Nikkei 225 ticked down 0.1% despite rising confidence among large Japanese manufacturers, according to a Reuters Tankan survey. Meanwhile, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 climbed 0.2% a day after the country’s central bank raised rates by 25 basis points.

Microsoft closes at a highMicrosoft shares climbed 1.12% to hit $360.53, a record high. It’s the eighth consecutive day in which the technology giant’s shares rose, a streak unseen since January 2021. Investors cheered Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s surprise appearance at OpenAI’s event, where he encouraged developers to build with Microsoft’s Azure cloud infrastructure.

‘Absolutely booming’ Chinese sectorChina’s economy hasn’t recovered from its pandemic blues. But in the sectors of “electric vehicles and everything around sustainability and renewable power technology,” China is “absolutely booming,” Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters told CNBC. Relatedly, China’s truck industry is increasingly using vehicles with assisted-driving technology, a critical step toward monetizing the nascent business.

Peak, not pause?The U.S. Federal Reserve, European Central Bank and the Bank of England all paused interest rate hikes in recent weeks. This breather comes after dramatic hikes over the last 18 months as central banks grappled with unruly inflation. Some market watchers, in fact, think this lull in hikes isn’t so much a pause but the peak in rates — and are turning their attention to when central banks will start cutting.

[PRO] Buy BYDOver the past 18 months, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has sold more than half its stake in Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD, according to stock filings. Despite that, analysts still think BYD’s a stock worth buying — and some even raised their price targets for the firm.

Last month’s sudden surge in Treasury yields and oil prices — both of which tend to suppress investors’ appetite for stocks — looks to be ending. No, scratch that — the increases aren’t just ending, they’re ebbing.  

Look at oil: Contracts for both West Texas Intermediate and Brent futures fell around $3. WTI’s now at $77.01 a barrel while Brent’s $81.44, their lowest since July. That’s almost $10 per barrel less compared with a month ago, when prices jumped on fears triggered by the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Meanwhile, the 10-year Treasury yield fell around 10 basis points to 4.569% and the 2-year yield slipped 3 basis points to 4.915%. As Treasury yields serve as the benchmark for interest rates on loans and cash investments, sinking yields generally benefit rate-sensitive companies more. In other words: the Magnificent Seven Big Tech. Amazon led the pack, shooting up 2.13% yesterday.

That explains why the Nasdaq Composite jumped 0.9%, more than the S&P 500’s 0.28% gain and the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s 0.17% increase. Still, that’s not downplaying the movements. The S&P and Dow are enjoying their seventh consecutive session of gains, while the Nasdaq’s basking in its eighth.

If the U.S. Federal Reserve does indeed steer the economy to a soft landing, in which inflation is contained below 2% without the economy contracting, then there could be a further rally in stocks, said HSBC. Within periods of soft landings, the S&P has jumped, on average, 22% in the space between a pause and six months after rate cuts begin, noted HSBC’s global equity strategist Alastair Pinder.

And that immaculate disinflation isn’t just a dream. Chicago Federal Reserve President Austan Goolsbee told CNBC, “Because of some of the strangeness of this moment, there is the possibility of the golden path … that we got inflation down without a recession.”

Both the economy and markets have truly acted in strange, unprecedented ways ever since the pandemic. From one of the worst years for stocks and bonds in 2022, to a widely heralded bull rally in the S&P — and then a correction — in 2023. And I haven’t even started on the U.S. labor market and inflation numbers. Strange may be new and unsettling, but it isn’t necessarily bad.

This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our new, international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.

Spooky OctoberMajor U.S. indexes inched up Tuesday, but ended October in the red — giving them a three-month losing streak. Asia-Pacific markets mostly rose Wednesday, with Japan’s Nikkei jumping around 2.2% a day after the Bank of Japan relaxed its yield curve control policy. South Korea’s Kospi climbed about 1% as the country’s October exports rose 5.1% year on year, its first rise in 13 months.

Watch Janet alongside JeromeThere’s virtually zero chance the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates at the conclusion of its meeting later today. But Chair Jerome Powell’s comments may still have the force to move markets. And market watchers might want to pay more attention to the U.S. Treasury Department’s announcement of the size, and the duration mix, of its upcoming Treasury auction.

China’s high-level meetingsChina concluded a high-level financial meeting Tuesday, where the country signaled support for property developers and resolving local government debt problems. The twice-a-decade financial conference tends to sketch out long-term policy. Separately, U.S. President Joe Biden will meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in the U.S., announced the White House.

Next year will be betterAMD reported third-quarter earnings and revenue that beat expectations. But the chipmaker’s fourth-quarter sales forecast came in at $6.1 billion, below the $6.37 billion analysts were looking for. Nonetheless, AMD thinks 2024 will prove a better year for its artificial intelligence chip business — the firm’s one of the few chipmakers capable of manufacturing the high-end chips that generative AI relies on.

[PRO] A 117-year-old AI companyThere’s an old technology company that was founded in 1906, and which has become a household name. But traders should “rethink” their preconceptions of it, according to one investor. The 117-year-old company is “becoming an AI company. They’re becoming a cloud company,” he said.

The last day of October was sweet for markets, but it was more trick than treat for the rest of the month.

Major indexes managed to finish the day in the green. The S&P 500 rose 0.65% — pulling it out of correction territory, the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.38% and the Nasdaq Composite was 0.48% higher.

But this final sprint couldn’t help stocks outrun a dismal October, which was haunted by the 10-year Treasury yield breaching the 5% level for the first time in 16 years. On a monthly basis, the S&P fell 2.2%, the Dow 1.4% and the Nasdaq 2.8%. All three indexes declined for three consecutive months — the first time for the S&P and Dow since March 2020.

In fact, this is just the ninth time since 1928 the S&P has fallen consecutively from August to October, according to Bespoke Investment Group. But history presents a silver lining: The last two times the S&P fell during those months, it rallied 3.42% and 5.99% in the following November, the group said.

The Federal Reserve’s decision on interest rates, expected Wednesday, might give stocks another boost. “If the Fed comes out and says they’re probably done for the year, gives hints that they’re feeling more dovish, that could be one thing that really helps,” said Ross Mayfield, investment strategy analyst at Baird.

And stocks certainly do need help. Even the Magnificent Seven stocks that led most — if not all — the gains in the S&P this year have been struggling in October. Tesla, most significantly, is down 20.5% for the month, while Nvidia has dropped more than 7% and Alphabet’s 5.8% lower. Only Microsoft and Amazon have advanced for the month.

But nothing lasts forever: Even cold November rain may wash away the bitter taste of the past three months.

This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our new, international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.

Stocks sold offU.S. stocks experienced a sell-off and all major indexes closed in the red. Meanwhile, U.S. Treasury yields rose for the second consecutive day. Asia-Pacific markets followed Wall Street lower Thursday. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 1.29%, leading losses in the region, as trade data for the country came in worse than expected. Japan’s Nikkei 225 slipped 0.64% after eight straight days of gains.

China’s trade isn’t picking upChina’s trade activity fell again in August, though not as badly as feared. In U.S. dollar terms, exports fell by 8.8% from a year ago, compared with the 9.2% forecast. Imports dropped 7.3%, less than the 9% decline expected. However, that means imports have fallen every month this year, while exports have dropped monthly since April.

An Apple-Arm agreementApple has signed an agreement with Arm that “extends beyond 2040,” Arm said in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing. This suggests Apple has secured access to the Arm architecture, an instruction set that outlines how a chip’s central processor works, for the foreseeable future. That can only boost the excitement around Arm’s upcoming IPO that values it as high as $52 billion.

Inside the Magic Kingdom’s chaosWhat did a private bathroom, Oogie Boogie and a hippo have to do with the behind-the-scenes chaos between Bob Iger and Bob Chapek at Disney? CNBC’s Alex Sherman spoke with more than 25 people who worked closely with Iger and Chapek between 2020 and 2022, uncovering the inside story of a CEO succession plan gone awry.

[PRO] Taking bites out of AppleChina reportedly banned government officials from using Apple’s iPhone and other foreign-branded devices for work. The European Commission also designated Apple as a “gatekeeper” under its new act. Apple shares fell 3.6% yesterday — could the company face even more headwinds ahead? Listen to what the pros are saying about those developments.

The roaring flames of 9.1% inflation in June last year have been quenched, but the last few glowing embers are proving hard to extinguish completely.

Oil prices are still rising from yesterday’s news of supply cuts by Saudi Arabia and Russia, adding to inflationary pressures.

And today we found out the services and manufacturing sectors of the U.S. economy have been paying higher prices for inputs in August, according to the prices component of the ISM Services index and its manufacturing counterpart. Moreover, the report showed the services sector growing at a faster-than-expected clip for its eighth consecutive month of expansion and its highest reading since February.

For recession worriers, that sounds like good news. But markets have turned their focus from recession to stubborn inflation and the threat of higher interest rates.

Markets are “seemingly adopting a ‘bad news is good news’ view, rallying on weak growth data, and selling off on strong data — amid fears that too strong data will increase the risk of an additional rate hike,” Goldman Sachs’ Chris Hussey wrote in a Wednesday note.

Indeed, as Treasury yields jumped — the 2-year yield breached the 5% level once again — and bets of a rate hike in November increased, stocks were pressured. Rate-sensitive technology stocks were especially affected, with Nvidia and Apple losing more than 3% each. (Apple’s shares were also affected by a Wall Street Journal report that Chinese government agencies have banned staff from using iPhones at work.)

That caused the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite to sink 1.06% for its third straight day of losses. The S&P 500 retreated 0.7% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.57%.

A roaring blaze is dangerous. But more often than not, it’s the embers smoldering in the underbush that cause the most damage — and ignite a wildfire again.

This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our new, international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.

Stocks under pressureU.S. stocks fell Thursday, their third losing day in a row. The 10-year Treasury yield touched 4.284%, the highest since October. Asia-Pacific markets retreated Friday as investors digested more bad news about China’s real estate sector. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index lost around 1.4% while the mainland Shanghai Composite inched down 0.3%. Separately, Japan’s headline inflation in July held steady at 3.3%.

China’s property troublesEvergrande Group, a heavily indebted Chinese property developer, filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy protection in a U.S. court Thursday. The statute protects non-U.S. companies that are undergoing restructuring from creditors. It’s another stark sign of how China’s property sector hasn’t improved since its slump in 2020, intensifying calls for policymakers to step in.

Bright spots in Chinese economyChina’s economy may be struggling, but there are bright spots in the consumer economy, according to earnings reports from big Chinese companies. JD.com saw electric and home appliance revenues rise 11.3%, Tencent saw 150% year-on-year growth in gross merchandise value and Alibaba’s Tmall sales increased 21% year over year to 30.16 billion yuan ($4.1 billion).

Bitcoin plungesBitcoin fell sharply to $26,308, its lowest level in almost two months, after minutes of the Federal Reserve’s July meeting were released. The Fed’s warning that sustained inflation could lead to more rate hikes — and a higher chance of an engineered recession — probably triggered a sell-off in risky assets like cryptocurrency, said Sylvia Jablonski, chief investment officer at Defiance ETFs.

[PRO] Headwinds in AugustThe S&P 500 is down 4% so far this month, putting it on pace for its worst one-month decline since December. There are a few factors for the slump: zero-day options, weak technicals and a weak Chinese economy. CNBC Pro’s Fred Imbert breaks down each headwind and gives suggestions on how investors can protect their portfolios.

Rising U.S. Treasury yields are straining stocks. Minutes of the Federal Reserve’s July meeting triggered the 10-year yield to rise more than 2 basis points to hit its highest level in almost a year. But at 4.282%, it’s still lower than the benchmark interest rate of 5.25% to 5.5%.

That’s not even taking into account the last rate hike that the Fed had projected for the year, which would take rates to a range of 5.5% to 5.75%. Investors had hoped — and bet — that the Fed would stop hiking after its meeting in July.

Those bets are slowly unwinding. There’s a 33.2% chance that the Fed will increase rates by 25 basis points at its November meeting, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.  Those odds were only 27.8% a week ago.

And with rates possibly going higher than that if inflation resurges — as the Fed warned in its minutes — yields could climb further still.

Investors didn’t like the sound of that. The S&P 500 lost 0.77%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.84% and the Nasdaq Composite declined 1.17%. All three indexes closed below their 50-day moving average — the first time for the Dow since June.

Trading was brisk, too, suggesting investors sold off stocks because they feared more losses. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF, a fund that tracks the S&P index, traded 95.3 million shares, above its 30-day moving volume of 72.4 million

Indeed, investor sentiment nosedived this week, according to the latest American Association of Individual Investor weekly survey. Just 35.9% of investors are bullish about the next six months, down from 44.7% last week and 49% two weeks ago. The decline snapped a 10-week streak when bullishness had exceeded the historical average of 37.5%, the AAII said.

It’d be a stretch of the imagination, however, to say that a bear market is back. All indexes are still above their 200-day moving average. The S&P is around 9.31% off its record high and has rallied about 14% this year. It’s important to keep in mind that August has historically been a slow, and bad month for stocks. But August is just one month.

— CNBC’s Scott Schnipper contributed to this report

This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our new, international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.

BOE’s supersized surprise hikeThe Bank of England raised interest rates by 50 basis points, bringing rates to 5%. Markets were betting on a 25-basis-point hike. But May’s inflation reading for the U.K. was a scorcher: Inflation last month remained unchanged from April, while core inflation actually rose from 6.8% to 7.1% year over year. If inflation remains stubborn, expect more surprises from the BOE.

Turkey’s welcome hikeTurkey’s central bank — under its new governor Hafize Gaye Erkan — doubled the country’s interest rate from 8.5% to 15%. That goes some way in tackling Turkey’s soaring inflation which, aided by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s insistence on keeping rates low, hit 39.6% in May. But some analysts criticized the hike for being too modest — most were expecting rates to hit 20%.

Capital requirements hikeOn the second day of his Senate testimony, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said new regulations  aren’t likely to apply to banks below $100 billion in assets. Those rules would increase the amount of capital banks need to maintain, among other conditions. Separately, FDIC Chair Martin Gruenberg said the rules are expected to kick in next year.

Mixed marketsU.S. markets mostly rose Thursday, as the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite snapped their three-day losing streak, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average remained virtually unchanged. The pan-European Stoxx 600 lost 0.51%, but one stock had a great day: shares of British online grocer Ocado rocketed 32.05% amid speculation that Amazon might buy the company.

[PRO] Bearish market, overvalued stocksEven with the recent rally in the S&P 500, the index is still trying to climb beyond the high it reached in January 2022 — which would usher in an official bull market. Yet market strategists from UBS and JPMorgan Chase and are already warning that the stock market may be overvalued.

Investors have been lulled by a sense of security that inflation in the U.S. is falling, albeit slower than hoped, and interest rates will gradually fall as the beast is slayed. That’s the engine behind markets’ astounding rally in recent weeks.

But investors are being rudely returned to a world they thought they had put behind them — a world, in other words, of continual rate hikes. Fed Governor Michelle Bowman thinks “additional policy rate increases will be necessary” — to the extent that they are “sufficiently restrictive” — so that inflation will drop further. Bowman, who is on the Federal Open Market Committee, essentially echoed Powell’s Wednesday comments that more rate hikes are necessary despite June’s pause. (“Pause” is a word Powell dislikes, by the way, which sheds light on how the Fed is thinking.)

The prospect of more hikes might be why investors are fleeing to technology stocks. Amazon, Apple and Microsoft all climbed yesterday. It sounds contrary, I know. Don’t tech stocks, dependent on growth, suffer the most from high interest rates, which erode the value of future earnings?

My sense is that investors see artificial intelligence as a moat around earnings, a barrier which rates cannot encroach. Well, that’s the hope, anyway.

Still, excitement over AI might not be enough to sustain the whole market. Despite adding close to 1% Thursday, the Nasdaq is on track to break its eight-week winning streak. Likewise, the S&P’s 0.37% gain might be too little to preserve its five consecutive weeks of closing in the green.

Some analysts hoped that bullish markets would charge forward, seeing red. But the hue in sight now seems less a matador’s red cape than traffic-halting red lights.

Correction: This article has been updated to correct the date of the S&P’s all-time high.

There’s a corner of the market gaining traction among ETF investors, according to The ETF Store’s Nate Geraci.

The firm’s president finds international ETFs are experiencing stronger inflows.

“There is a little bit of performance chasing going on here, because broad international stocks have fairly significantly outperformed U.S. stocks since about the beginning of the fourth quarter of last year,” he told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” this week. “Investors are looking at that performance and perhaps reallocating there.”

BofA Global Research’s latest market data out late this week appears to support Geraci’s thesis. It shows emerging markets are seeing strong inflows so far this year.

According to the firm, inflows into emerging-market equities are clipping along at $152.3 billion on an annualized basis. This would mark the group’s largest ever inflows if the pace continues.

Geraci believes a weakening U.S. dollar due to a potential pivot away from interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve is partially responsible for the shift. The U.S. Dollar Currency Index is down almost 1% year to date.

Valuations of overseas companies may also be more attracting investors, he added.

And, there may be even more growth ahead.

D.J. Tierney of Schwab Asset Management contends retail investors don’t own enough global stocks. He suggests the upside will continue into the second quarter, which starts Monday.

“Rebalancing [to international stocks] to get some more exposure could make sense for a lot of investors,” said the senior investment portfolio strategist.

His firm’s Schwab International Equity ETF, which tracks large- and mid-cap companies in over 20 developed global markets, is up 8.1% so far this year.

CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Thursday said the Federal Reserve no longer needs action to tame inflation — and it’s because of the banking crisis.

Cramer said 10 days ago that investors were expecting a possible 50-basis-point interest rate hike from the Fed based on Chairman Jerome Powell’s recent response to January inflation data and the strong labor market.

Powell warned that if inflation remained strong, he expected rates to go “higher than previously anticipated” and possibly faster than a quarter point at a time.

It seemed like a 50 basis point rate hike was coming until the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, Cramer said.