Wall Street put in one of its best weeks of the year so far, with the S&P 500 index gaining 1.3% to 4,538 points and the Nasdaq index rising by 1.7%.
Moreover, the MSCI World index is on the way to its first fortnight of gains this year.
This is despite the worst US consumer confidence reading since 2011, US inflation expectations hitting their highest level in 40 years and the 10-year US Treasury yield touching a three-year peak of 2.41%.
Bonds had their worst week for decades as the market fretted the Federal Reserve could raise interest rates by 0.5 percentage points in May and again in June.
Winners once again included fertiliser makers Mosaic and CF Industries which gained 12% and 13% respectively.
Mosaic reported a surge in potash and phosphate sales in the first two months of this year as higher prices more than offset lower volumes.
Steel maker Nucor was another big winner, building on last week's gains with a near-13% advance as investors looked forward to potentially record first-quarter earnings.
Losing ground were housebuilders Pulte and Lennar, dropping 10% and 11% respectively.
Weakness spilled over into homeware retailers Home Depot and Lowe's along with DIY toolmaker Stanley Black & Decker and construction materials merchant Builders FirstSource.
GOOD WEEK FOR TESLA
It was a positive week on the markets for electric vehicle companies including Tesla which saw its share price rise 12%. Tesla's shares have rallied since mid-March, but they are still trading 15% lower year to date.
Helping sentiment was the opening on 22 March of Tesla's electric car Gigafactory near Berlin which is the first European hub for the company. The facility will manufacture hundreds of thousands of Model Y vehicles and millions of battery cells.
Nio's shares rallied ahead of its results on 24 March. The Chinese electric vehicle company, which has stock market listings in New York and Hong Kong, reported a 109% increase in vehicle deliveries in 2021 versus the previous year.
BAD WEEK FOR BOEING
Shares in Boeing fell on 21 March after news that one of its 737-800 airliners had crashed in southern China killing everyone on board in the country's worst air disaster in more than a decade.
The operator, China Eastern Airlines, grounded its fleet of 223 similar aircraft for safety and maintenance checks.
It was three years ago this month that Boeing's next-generation 737 Max was grounded worldwide after two aircraft, one operated by Indonesia's Lion Air and one by Ethiopian Airlines, crashed on take-off in separate incidents.
Although the Max is back in service around the world, there are still questions over its hurried development as a rival to Airbus's A320neo and the FAA's role in the approval process.
After the scrutiny it received over the Max, the FAA is now holding up certification of the lengthened version of the aircraft due to new safety standards for cockpit alerts.
Boeing is already experiencing a slowdown in demand with orders halving between January and February and any delay in the approval process for new models is a further blow.
To compound matters, the sale of parts and software for aircraft leased to Russian airlines is banned following the invasion of Ukraine, cutting off an important source of revenue.
US JOBS DATA
Friday 1 April will see the latest batch of US jobs and wage growth data. This information will be closely watched by the US central bank, the Federal Reserve.
February saw the addition of 678,000 payroll jobs outside of the farming sector and 5.1% year-on-year wage growth to an average of $31.58 an hour. The market forecast for March is 470,000 new jobs.
The Federal Reserve says inflation rather than jobs is now its primary source of concern. Therefore, it is likely to be more interested in wage growth than the headline jobs data, particularly with a view to forming a decision on whether interest rates should go up at its next policy committee meeting on 4 May, and by how much.
