The NASDAQ 100 initially shot higher during trading on Thursday, but at the first signs of trouble, in the form of a downtrend line, the market rolled over. Quite frankly, the market will continue to struggle as long as there are a lot of concerns about higher interest rates, which should continue due to the fact that inflation is roaring.

Add to the fact that we are in the midst of earnings season, then you have the perfect “witches brew” for volatility. As a general rule, the more volatility that you have, the less likely you are to see higher pricing. Furthermore, it should be noted that Tesla had a less than stellar earnings report during the previous session, blaming a lot of things on “supply chain issues.”

At this point, the NASDAQ 100 can be thought of as a window into risk appetite, and it certainly looks as if risk appetite could fade going into the weekend, which is not a huge price considering that we could see a lot of fear holding riskier assets over the weekend for fear of a major gap on Monday.

Because of this, you can extrapolate this to several assets.

Pro:

• US dollar
• Swiss franc

Con:

• Commodity currencies such as CAD, NZD, AUD
• Japanese yen, although it needs a bit of a relief rally
• Stocks worldwide