Peter Nurse   

Investing.com: U.S. stocks open slightly lower Monday morning, as technology performs poorly ahead of the release key inflation data this week. This could indicate that Federal Reserve increases in 2022 are not far off.

The contract traded flat at 7:01 AM ET (1200 GMT) and fell 35 points or 0.2%.

Wall Street’s main indices had a rough start to 2012. Tech-heavy lost four days in a row last week, as growing expectations of Fed hikes put pressure on a sector whose high valuations were largely due to long-term assumptions about easy money. 

With this in mind, investors will focus squarely on Wednesday’s data. It is possible that headline CPI will surpass 7% annually. This would mark a 4-decade-high and highlight the reason why the Fed might begin its rate rise cycle in March.

For any indications on the future direction of monetary policy, the nomination hearings for Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Tuesday and Fed Governor Lael brainard on Thursday will be closely followed. 

Goldman Sachs, an influential investment bank, now believes that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates at least four times this fiscal year. It also plans to begin its balance sheet runoff process sometime in July, if it is not already.

Tesla (NASDAQ:), a top-ranked electric vehicle manufacturer, will be the focus of corporate news Monday. The company named Tesla its top choice for 2022 and stated that innovation will drive investment.

JPMorgan Chase, NYSE:) will be the first to release fourth-quarterly earnings results for U.S. banks at the close of this week. Citigroup (NYSE: Wells Fargo On Friday, (NYSE: ) is scheduled to report. The higher Treasury yields will be a factor in analysts expecting big U.S. banks and financial institutions to see an increase of core revenues for fourth quarter.  

Tilray (NASDAQ): Monday’s earnings report will be a blurred one for the cannabis company Tilray.

The oil market stabilized Monday following the sharp gains the previous week. On Sunday, operator Chevron reported that Kazakhstan’s largest oil enterprise, Tengizchevroil was slowly returning to normal production levels, despite recent protests that had limited its output.

Libya’s oil production is also recovering after a major crude pipeline was fixed, the country’s energy minister said Monday.

The global spotlight has been on supply issues in countries like Kazakhstan and Libya, raising concerns over the potential impact of Omicron coronavirus.

Futures were trading 0.2% lower at $78.78 per barrel by 7:01 AM ET. The contract was 0.1% lower at $81.66. The gains in both futures and contracts were around 5% for the first week.

Also, the price of gold rose 0.2% at $1,800.20/oz while it traded 0.3% lower to 1.1326.