US equity markets saw a mixed start, but soon turned lower across the board following remarks by the Fed Governor Lael Brainard, saying the Fed will “continue tightening monetary policy methodically through a series of interest rate increases and by starting to reduce the balance sheet at a rapid pace as soon as our May meeting,” This saw - Dow down -280 points or +0.80%. The broader S&P500 -1.26%, with Consumer Discretionary (-2.35%), and Information Technology (-2.19) leading the way down. Spirit Airlines (+22.37%) surged overnight after a report that JetBlue Airways has made a bid for budget carrier. This comes less than two months after Spirit and Frontier agreed to merge into a discount airline behemoth. The Nasdaq lead the losses falling -2.26%. Twitter (+2.00%) remained in the spotlight for a second day after the company named Elon Musk to its board of directors. Expectations of quicker interest rate hikes also dulled high-growth stocks Tesla (-4.73%), Paypal (-3.45%), and Amazon (2.6%). The small capitalisation Russell 2000 -2.36%.
