In this episode, Piers and I catch up on what has been another busy week in markets where global stocks are on course for their best week since November 2020.

We catch-up on the latest news on Ukraine, where reports midweek suggested Ukraine and Russia have made significant progress on a tentative peace plan including a ceasefire and Russian withdrawal if Kyiv declares neutrality and accepts limits its armed forces. We talk about making sense of the headline noise and whether we have had peak conflict in terms of market pricing.

We then catch up on why the implied probability of a default by Russia within the year has decreased following news that J.P. Morgan has processed a bond payment and delve into what to expect from the meeting today between US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

We debate US strategy heading into the high-level talks and why President Xi is perhaps the leader facing the greatest challenges at the moment as China's zero-tolerance COVID strategy comes back in the spotlight as cases rates in explode.

Finally, we review the decision from the US Federal Reserve to hike rates and commence what is expected to be a series of rate hikes this year. Has Fed Chair Jerome Powell got back in control of the inflation problem or is he being complacent over the risk of a recession?

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MM058: Russian default risk recedes & is President Xi in trouble?

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