Stock market: Nasdaq leads, U.S. dollar trends higher amid rate hikes

Yahoo Finance Live’s Jared Blikre breaks down how stocks are moving after the opening bell, plus current trends in the U.S. dollar index and U.S. Treasuries.

Video transcript

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BRAD SMITH: Welcome back to "Yahoo Finance Live," everyone. This morning, we're seeing some mixed activity among the US major averages here, as we're 15 minutes into the start of trade on the day. Let's get on over to Yahoo Finance's Jared Blikre, who's over at the YFi Interactive. Hey.

JARED BLIKRE: Hey, there. Yes, a mixed day but the NASDAQ is leading. That's the takeaway that I'm getting. And that's important because that has been the case for the year.

Before we go into our heatmaps, I just want to spend a little time on the US dollar index. This is a line chart. I want to put some candlesticks. The low we saw was basically in 2021. So early, let's say, late in the year of 2020. That was the year of the pandemic. And early 2021, we got this double bottom here.

It came all the way up. This was a huge pain trade, this move in the dollar. And that was fueled by the rise-- the expectations that the Federal Reserve is gonna raise interest rates, which they have been. This has been incredibly strong.

Now, the retracement here has been 50%, half of this whole move. So this is the ideal entry point for traders. And the fact that we got these three green bars now, that tells me that they're trying to get long here. It doesn't mean that they're going to succeed. We could still go down and puncture these lows here. But the trend, a very, very small uptrend is in place here.

And when you take it in context of the longer trend, which is still up here, we've got to pay attention to that. That would provide some pain for equities. And then you take a look at what the 10-year T-note has done, as well. Let me dial this down to a six-month chart. This is creeping higher.

And then let's go to the very short end of the curve, the 13 week T-bill yield. Hard to see here. Doesn't move a lot but we are right up against these highs here. And this is factoring what the Federal Reserve is going to do with its benchmark. And I think all the more relevant today because we have Chair Powell in front of Congress. So definitely expect some noise on that front.

Now, today we've got tech in the forefront, followed by materials, energy. Those are the only sectors in the green. Staples, real estate, utilities, those are the ones taking it on the chin here. That is good for the market, I guess, of risk on because those are the defensive sectors. We're just not really seeing much getting bought just yet.

KWEB, a Chinese ETF, that's getting some love here. Chip stocks, transport, software, a little bit of love. Meme stocks perked up yesterday. I just want to spend a little time there see what they're doing because we talked about the Best Buy-- or the Bed Bath & Beyond news. And I can't even find them on here because the stock is so small. But they are down 44%. So really giving back some of those big gains they saw yesterday.

Used to be that when you're raising capital nowadays for a meme stock, that's a good thing. Usually, the stock goes up. I say that tongue in cheek because that's not supposed to happen, but with meme stocks, you never know.

BRIAN SOZZI: Don't worry, Jared, consumers can't find those stores either. They're just really disappearing. Jared Blikre, thanks so much.