Stock Markets Today: German lockdown; Powell, Yellen; Israel; Dorsey

Good morning. Tough German lockdown, Powell and Yellen in Congress, Israel election and a pricey tweet. Here’s what’s moving markets.

Germany’s Tough Easter

Chancellor Angela Merkel and regional leaders agreed to put Germany into a harsh lockdown over Easter after the country’s Covid-19 incidence rate nearly doubled in the past month, threatening to overwhelm hospitals. All stores will be shuttered for five days, except for a brief respite for food stores. “We are now in a very, very serious situation,” Merkel said. Elsewhere, vaccine diplomacy is progressing, with Europe and the U.K. seeking to avoid an escalation that could see exports to Britain blocked from AstraZeneca’s plant in the Netherlands, European Union officials have floated sharing the facility’s output, Bloomberg reports. U.K.’s  Boris Johnson says the EU does not want “blockades.”

Powell & Yellen

It’s all eyes on Washington later as U.S. Federal Reserve boss Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen speak on the pandemic response. Yellen is expected not only to highlight the improved economic outlook and dramatic expansion in help to households from the bill, but also highlight the need for more spending, partly paid for with higher taxes. The hearing comes as the  Biden administration is reportedly considering as much as $3 trillion worth of new measures. Watch for Powell to repeat that the central bank won’t act on forecasts of inflation, but only on harder data. In this region, the European Central Bank on Monday followed through on a pledge to boost the pace of emergency bond-buying to combat higher yields.

Israel Votes

Israelis go to the polls in what’s set to be a tightly-contested election as a successful vaccine rollout fails to give incumbent leader Benjamin Netanyahu a clear edge. Polls show neither Netanyahu — who has faced corruption charges — nor any of his rivals securely forming a coalition after the fourth election in two years. Joblessness is climbing at home while the national budget hasn’t been updated since March 2019. Internationally, Israel has faced flaring tensions with Iran and is watching warily as U.S. President Joe Biden works to rejoin the Iran nuclear accord and reset relations with the Palestinians that foundered during Donald Trump’s era. Here’s a refresher on the state of play. 

Mona Lisa Tweet

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s first tweet just sold for $2.9 million. Sina Estavi, chief executive officer of Malaysian blockchain service Bridge Oracle, paid for the non-fungible token in cryptocurrency Ether, according to Cent, the operator of auction website Valuables where it was sold. The 15-year-old post — “just setting up my twttr” is the latest example of digital art gaining popularity, with non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, providing a certificate of authenticity that runs on blockchain…