Morning Brew March 2 2026

Good morning

Markets are taking the escalation in the middle east relatively well: Oil jumped, with UK Crude up 6.5%. Gold up 1.6% and Silver 0.6%. Indexes are lower by around 1% with the Nikkei -1.9%.

US 10 year Yields are at 3.96, the USD Index rises to 98 as EURUSD falls to 1.1770, GBPUSD 1.3420 and USDJPY 156.80. Bitcoin ist rading water at 66k.  Gold is now 5365, Silver 94.14 and Platinum 2386.

On Friday, U.S. stock indices closed lowerwith the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping 521.28 points, or 1.05%, to 48,977.92; the S&P 500 losing 29.98 points, or 0.43%, to 6,878.88; and the Nasdaq Composite falling 210.17 points, or 0.92%, to 22,668.21.

For the month, the S&P 500 declined 0.9%, the Dow increased 0.2%, and the Nasdaq dropped 3.4%. For the week ending February 27, 2026, the S&P 500 slid 0.4%, the Dow fell 1.3%, and the Nasdaq slipped 1.0%.

Nvidia slid 4.2%, extending its previous session's 5.5% decline despite solid earnings, reflecting ongoing investor concerns about emerging AI technology. Meanwhile, Netflix surged 13.8% after investors welcomed its decision to exit the competition for Warner Bros Discovery, which lost 2.2%. Paramount Skydance, Warner Bros Discovery's likely suitor, soared 20.8%. Dell jumped 21.9% after the company announced positive expectations for revenue from its key AI-optimized servers business.

Defensive sectors, including consumer staples, healthcare, and utilities, stood out as the session's clear outperformers.

Notably, the Dow Industrials rose for the tenth consecutive month, marking the longest streak since the ten-month run that ended in January 2018. Trading volume on U.S. exchanges reached 20.85 billion shares, above the average of 20.19 billion.

Looking ahead, the further developments in the middle east will be the key item to watch for traders and investors, the higher oil prices will impact global economies if sustained.

International PMI and the Nonfarm Payrolls on Friday will be the biggest economic events of the week.

Monday, 2 March 2026

International PMI , UK Houseprices

Earnings Norwegian Cruise Lines

Tuesday, 3 March 2026

Eurozone Infaltion.

Central banks / Speeches Fed Williams, Kashkari

Earnings (selection)

Target, Bestbuy On Crowdstrike, Gitlab,

Wednesday, 4 March 2026

Australia GDP, China PMI, CH CPI, global PMI, EU PPI, US ADP

Central banks / Speeches Fed Beige Book

Earnings (selection)

Abercrombie, Wix, Broadcom, Rigetti, American Eagle

Thursday, 5 March 2026

Sweden CPI, EU Retail Sales, US productivity Cost& Initial Jobless Claims,

Central banks / Speeches Bowman

Earnings – US

• JD.Com. Victorias Secret, BiliBili, GoPro Kroger, Costco

Friday, 6 March 2026

US – Retail Sales Nonfarm Payrolls