us stocks traded mostly higher early monday attempting to shake off worries about fed rate rises as major indexes remained not far off their 2022 lows set at the end of last month investors were looking ahead to key inflation data due later this week as well as minutes of the feds september policy meeting and the start of earnings season on friday the dow fell 630 points or 21 the sp 500 declined 28 and the nasdaq composite dropped 38 the nasdaq composite was down 319 for the year to date through friday us stocks were attempting to dodge a fourth consecutive session of losses as concerns about additional interest rate rises by the federal reserve continued to damp sentiment trading was expected to be somewhat thinned by the columbus day and indigenous peoples day holiday which closed the treasury market soft data a week ago raised hopes that the fed would soon pause its monetary tightening cycle in its battle to suppress multidecade high inflation and the market subsequently rebounded off its near twoyear lows but a strong jobs report on friday crushed that fed pivot narrative and stocks plunged again seewhy stockmarket investors keep falling for fed pivot talk  and what it will take to put in a bottom the 5day round trip saw an average move for the sp 500 of 19 little surprise then that the cboe vix index  a gauge of expected sp 500 volatility sat on monday at 314 more than 50 above its long term average of 20 the market response to fridays us jobs report was characteristic of a bear market in equities us indices reversed sharply in the absence of the bad economic news required to shake the feds hawkish determination said ian williams strategist at peel hunt now traders will look toward more data due later in the week for further guidance on fed thinking and equity valuations a little more confidence that inflation is really heading lower and that rate hikes might just peak early next year would do wonders for investor sentiment just knowing that the fed funds rate will not reach 5 will boost confidence that current market multiples are not unreasonable said christopher smart chief global strategist at barings and head of the barings investment institute in emailed comments then investors can get back to the business of picking the companies that will best weather what should still be a mild downturn for us consumer demand next year he said the us producer price numbers will be released on wednesday and the consumer prices report on thursday the last of their kind before the feds ratesetting meeting on nov 2 then on friday thirdquarter corporate earnings season really kicks into gear when big banks like jpmorgan jpm and citigroup c present their numbers readjpmorgan citi morgan stanley and wells fargo kick off bank earnings season in choppy waters the estimated earnings growth rate for the sp 500 is 24 if 24 is the actualgrowth rate for the quarter it will mark the lowest earnings growth rate reported by the index since q3 2020 57 said john butters senior earnings analyst at factset check out sp 500 would be in an earnings recession if not for this one booming sector  but that may not last long investors were also keeping an eye on the us dollar whose strength is considered a drag on the earnings of us multinationals the dollar index rose 03 to 11315 as the euro broke back below 097 after russia sent missiles into cities across ukraine seea rampaging us dollar is wreaking havoc in financial markets heres why its so hard to stop it