By Pete Schroeder

WASHINGTON (Reuters] – Wall Street was open higher Monday, while U.S. Treasury yields hit a three-year peak as investors focused on corporate earnings.

An important cut in global growth expectations by the World Bank and March weakness, both economic data from China, have injected some pessimism to U.S. markets. They opened Monday, following a holiday-shortened week.

Investors will also be interested in corporate earnings this week. Several major companies have reported quarterly results. Bank of America’s (NYSE:) started the week off by reporting higher first-quarter profits that expected.

In early trading stocks were higher with rising stock prices of 0.22% and climbing 0.25 percent, respectively. Australia, Hong Kong, and other parts of Europe closed their markets for Easter holidays.

Monday’s announcement by the World Bank that its global growth forecast for 2020 was being cut nearly to 1% due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, came on Monday. According to the organization, economic growth will be 3.2% by 2022 as opposed to 4.1% in its previous forecast.

China reported Monday that its economy was slowing in March due to a decline in consumption and real estate, and this exacerbated an already weak outlook from COVID-19 and the Ukraine War.

“Stocks continued to search for sustained upside momentum amid high inflation readings, interest rates on the rise, and dashed hopes for a cease fire in Ukraine,” said Chris Larkin, managing director at E*TRADE.

“While we’re facing turbulent times, consider how the market has recalibrated so far this year. The S&P 500’s recent pullback was relatively mild, but the actually closed lower, which tends to suggest that volatility may have been priced in.”

TREASURY YIELDS – CLIMB

U.S. Treasury yields reached three-year highs due to the looming threat of Federal Reserve aggressive interest rate increases.

In order to control inflation rapidly, the Fed expects to raise its rates by at most 50 basis points during its May and June meeting. Fed funds futures traders are expecting the Fed’s benchmark rate to rise to 1.28% in June and to 2.67% next February, from 0.33% now.

The writer wrote, “Despite the emerging signs that inflation may be ease and hawkish Fed wagers being trimmed,” that a 50bps rate rise for May seems all but guaranteed. Deutsche Bank Analysts in a note (ETR:).

After hitting 2.884% on Monday, the benchmark 10-year note hit 2.8354%. This was its highest level since Dec. 2018.

Gold prices rose to an all-time high on Monday due to concerns about economic collapse. Safe-haven prices jumped 0.92%, to $1,992.71 per ounce.

Also, dollar gained a boost in safety as the has risen 0.29% against a basket six currencies.

Due to concerns about tight supply worldwide, prices rose due to outages at Libyan oil facilities. This was despite slowing Chinese demand.

Last up 1.6%, at $113.33 per barrel. Last up 1.3% at $108.37 a barrel.