On the first day of spring, the market is showing the only signs of green in New York City. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 have managed to make up ground after experiencing an incredibly volatile week. The NASDAQ continues to be a common topic of discussion as the index is within 10 points of its all-time closing high during today’s session. Note that the NASDAQ’s all-time closing high was at 5048.62 last set on March 10, 2000. Judging by the way the session is going, the NASDAQ may have a chance to close at another all-time high, almost exactly 15 years later.

Today’s session is also wrought with volatility as today marks the first quadruple witching session of the year. This is the expiration date for various financial instruments, namely stock index futures, stock index options, stock options and single stock futures. All stock options contracts expire on the third Friday of each month and once every quarter - on the third Friday of March, June, September and December - all four asset classes expire on the same day. Because investors must close out of these positions, volumes are typically very high.

In Europe, Germany posted the second lowest year-over-year reading for producer prices in over a year. Core producer prices in Germany decreased 2.1% percent in February over the same month in the previous year, and were actually below consensus’ forecast of -1.7%. Energy prices declined by 5.5% in February over last year, while cost of consumer non-durable goods dropped by 1.5% and intermediate goods dropped 1.3% compared to last year. These deep, negative price changes will not make Germany more understanding toward the European Central Bank’s (ECB) monetary expansion – at least not until the lower prices begin to become realized in the form of corporate profitability.