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As a general recap, the market was lower on Wednesday. Just after 10:30 AM EST, the $S&P 500 Index traded -0.55%, the $Dow Jones Industrial Average fell about 0.80%, and the $Nasdaq Composite Index fell 0.34%.

By direction, 8500 equities declined while 2200 advanced.

This week in macro, investors will also watch numerous Fed speeches. Today, the Fed Beige book summarizes the economic activity across each Federal Reserve Region at 2 PM EST.

Friday, investors will watch for the Personal Consumption Index inflation gauge release.

Last week the FOMC meeting minutes from the April 30-May 1 meeting showed that members felt uncertainty in the possibility that "high interest rates may have smaller effects than in the past." Participants said interest rates would stay put unless inflation numbers were clearly at 2%, or the labor market clearly weakens. Some members said they would be willing to raise rates.

The $U.S. 2-Year Treasury Notes Yield (US2Y.BD)$ fell to 4.96, and the $U.S. 10-Year Treasury Notes Yield (US10Y.BD)$ climbed to 4.59.

Will it be enough to put Federal Reserve interest rate cuts back on the table?

Expectations about the future path of Federal Reserve interest-rate policy has been on a roller coaster this year and the next potential swoon could come Friday with the release of the Fed's preferred inflation measure of consumer inflation.

Going into the week, the Fed is seen in a holding pattern, based on the hawkish policy comments in the minutes of the May policy meeting published last Wednesday.

The minutes revealed the Fed was shaken by the high inflation reports seen in January, February and March. Some policymakers had even raised the possibility of rate hikes. In addition, a "number" of officials saw the risk that financial conditions are not sufficiently restrictive to slow demand and inflation.

And so rate cuts, if they happen at all in 2024, are seen by many as more of a possibility for late in the year, possibly December.

Krishna Guha, vice chairman of Evercore ISI, said hawks and doves at the Fed are going to watch closely over coming 3-4 months to see who wins "a horse race in the data."

The dovish thesis is that the first quarter inflation spike was mostly backward looking and the economy and labor markets are moderating in which case the Fed might cut rates, Guha said. The hawkish thesis is that the economy is still too strong to bring inflation down, and see a more extended policy pause, he added.

There are Wall Street economists in both of these camps. Traders in derivative markets now expect only one rate cut this year. They have priced in a 50-50 chance of a rate cut in September, with greater odds of a the move coming in November.

April personal consumption expenditure (PCE) price index

According to a survey of economists by the Wall Street Journal, economists expect the PCE price data, which is Fed's favorite inflation measurement, should be an improvement compared to the first quarter, "but only a small one," according to Michael Gapen, head of U.S. economics at Bank of America Global Research.

Core inflation will likely print at 0.2%, slightly better than the 0.3% rate see in March, according the Wall Street Journal survey. That will be the lowest reading since December.

In the same report, the government will release consumer spending data, which should moderate to 0.4% gain from 0.8% rise in March. Income growth is expected to rise 0.3% down from 0.5% in the prior month.

"All-in-all, this report should be a Fed-friendly release that points to further moderation in consumer demand and real income growth that is gradually reducing the temperature on core inflation, keeping the door open for a couple of rate cuts later this year," said Scott Anderson, chief U.S. economist at BMO Capital Markets.

Treasury yields surged as data showing strength in US business activity and a tight labor market sparked traders to push back the timing for Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts until the end of this year. Bloomberg's Scarlet Fu discusses yields and the Fed with Baylor Lancaster-Samuel, Amerant Investments CIO.

Containerization prices are soaring in the off-season.

The Red Sea crisis has led to capacity constraints, shipping lines have stopped sailing to boost rates, container shortages, and demand recovery on all continents, all contributing to this round of rising prices for consolidation.

"A container is hard to find" "Container transportation, ocean freight prices are all rising" "Dumping containers" ...... in this round of early arrival of the In this round of early arrival of the tide of price increases, a number of freight forwarders to the times of financial analysis of the market situation they are currently facing. For small and medium-sized freight forwarders, this round of price hikes did not bring too much good, but more difficult to do business, "the shipping company price hikes after the customer than the price is more powerful".

Preemptive shipping to avoid tariffs, South American shipping lines wildly soar

"Container transportation field of the whole line rose", Shenzhen, a freight forwarding company staff Wang Chime said to the Times Finance; another operating Europe and the United States line of freight forwarding Xiao Zeng similarly pointed out that the company notified them of the United States line rose 50% this week, is expected to next week, the European line will rise 40%.

From the Shanghai Shipping Exchange data, May 17, Shanghai export container freight index composite freight index rose 9.3% over the previous period (May 10) to 2520.76 points.

Specific price, Shanghai port export to Europe basic port market tariffs (shipping and shipping surcharges, the same below) rose 6.3% over the previous period to 3050 U.S. dollars / TEU; Shanghai port export to the Mediterranean basic port market tariffs rose 1.1% over the previous period to 3957 U.S. dollars / TEU; export to the United States West and the U.S. East of the basic market tariffs for the West and East of the United States were 5025 U.S. dollars / FEU and 6026 U.S. dollars / FEU, respectively, compared with the previous period, respectively, the price of export container freight index rose 9.3% to 2520.76 points. FEU, up 14.4% and 8.3% respectively compared with the previous period.

Among the routes exported from Shanghai port to various continents, the South American route has the strongest rise, and the basic port market tariff for export to South America has risen by 22.4% compared with the previous period, reaching USD 6,686/TEU. It is worth noting that on May 10, the above routes in Europe, Mediterranean Sea, North America, South America and other routes have already recorded about 20% increase in the year-on-year ratio, and the trend of this week is still maintaining the upward trend. The Shanghai port export to South America basic port market freight has doubled compared to the beginning of the year (January 5), an increase of 130.47%.

In the view of the freight forwarders, different regional price increases for different reasons.

Precious metals prices each gained ground on Wednesday, when U.S. inflation data released slowed as expected, boosting market confidence in an earlier rate cut by the Federal Reserve, depressing the dollar while boosting dollar-denominated precious metals.

The data showed that the U.S. consumer price index (CPI) in April, year-on-year increase slowed from 3.5% to 3.4%, the core indicator slowed from 3.8% to 3.6%, both in line with expectations. Retail sales, released at the same time, were unchanged from the previous month and well below previous expectations of a 0.4% increase, signaling clear signs of cooling on the consumer side.

As a result of the data, spot gold prices closed at their highest level in nearly a month, before falling back a little to near $2,380 an ounce on Thursday; silver hit a new high in more than three years, approaching the $30 mark; and platinum, which once climbed to a near one-year peak, is now back down to $1,058 an ounce.

Year-to-date, spot gold prices accumulated more than 15%, silver prices accumulated nearly 25%, platinum prices rose slightly more than 7%. In this regard, many strategists still believe that the precious metals may continue to move higher on the current basis of a new all-time record.

Gold prices could soon test the $2,400 level, silver could climb to $30, and platinum has upside potential to reach $1,130, strategists at Denmark's Saxo Bank wrote in a research note. The bank said the reality is continuing to close in on the theme of the "Year of the Metals", which it predicted at the beginning of the year.

Analysts at U.S.-based ROTH Capital Partners also believe that gold and silver prices will move further higher in the coming months. In a report at the end of last week, Chief Technical Strategist JC O'Hara mentioned that gold appears poised for strength and will break above the highs set in April, "Technically, we are setting an upside target price of $2,600."

For silver, O'Hara said that if the price can break above $30, it will have little resistance until it reaches the $35 to $37 area.

However, not everyone expects the precious metal to keep strengthening. Ewa Manthey, commodities strategist at ING Bank in the Netherlands, said in a report earlier this month, "With the Fed set to continue its cautious approach, in addition to geopolitics already factored into current prices, gold prices may moderate this quarter."

Minneapolis Fed President Kashkari said on Wednesday that he expects central bank policymakers will need to keep interest rates unchanged for "quite some time" until they are confident about the underlying path of inflation.

In a discussion at the Williston Basin Oil Conference, Kashkari reiterated his surprise at the resilience of the U.S. economy in the face of current higher interest rates.

Kashkari said, "The biggest uncertainty, in my view, is how much downward pressure monetary policy is exerting on the economy. It's an unknown that we can't know for sure - which tells me we probably need to stay here a little longer until we figure out the underlying trend in inflation before we draw any conclusions."