Students sitting at Michigan Stadium at U-M Ann Arbor’s 2025 Spring Commencement.
At this year’s Spring Commencements across the Ann Arbor, Dearborn and Flint campuses, U-M will confer its one millionth degree! The historic milestone comes more than 180 years after U-M’s first commencement ceremony in 1845, which featured 11 graduates. myumi.ch/A1rAj #MGoGrad
THE DOMINANT SUB
Netflix’s Reed Hastings is pretty much the reason everything is a subscription business today
sherwood.news/business/so-... $NFLX by @maxknoblauch.bsky.social & @natebecker.bsky.social
you: we need 24/7 trading
me: it's nothing but bad actors and bad outcomes - in a 2 minute span someone jammed CAR from $640 to $690 on less than 5k shares at 4:22 EST
$500k of volume should not equate to $2b in market cap
thanks for coming to my Ted Talk
GOLDMAN DESK:
“.. inflation data will be in the driver's seat over the coming months. .. a move towards 3.5% in core PCE (from 3% current) could bring about a serious discussion of hikes.
“.. To bring cuts back into the equation, the unemployment rate would need to rise from 4.3% back to 4.6%.”
"While the S&P 500 is above pre-war levels and at new highs, the recovery across sectors has been very uneven." - DB
Dow Transports vs Dow Industrials - almost the best 3-day rally since 1938 @stockcharts
Only Feb 2023 and July 1989 had better relative runs
Any thoughts on this?
Cumulative tax refund dollars +16% YoY GS IRS
Why are consumers still spending money despite higher prices, tariffs, energy price spikes, war, etc?
You cannot overstate how much wealth has been created in the stock and housing markets in the 2020s
Taking stock of consumer balance sheets:
awealthofcommonsense.com/2026/04/how-...
Wow, this played out like a charm...
Historically, the S&P 500 bottoms 15 trading days after a geopolitical event begins, DB. @soberlook
I took some chartistic liberty with the Iran War price update...
2026 (planned) Data centers vs. megaprojects Inflation-adjusted costs, billions USD SIT- 2025₽ Data center capex =$930B in 6 years $750B- Interstate Highway System ® S620B, 37yr US Railroads $550B, 71yr $500B- F-35 Program $400B, 25yr (to date) $250B - $O Apollo Program $257B, 14yr Marshall Plan $170B, 4yr Manhattan-Project -$36B,Syr- 10 20 International Space Station $150B, 27yr- 30 40 Years from start of program 50 60 70 Sources: Company reports, Epoch AI • FHWA • NASA • CRS • GAO • Brookings Al capex = estimated data-centre share of global reported capex at the big-5 US hyperscalers (Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, Oracle; Epoch AI+ Platformonomics). Assuming DC share scales from +55% in 2020 to =80% by 2026. Excludes Chinese hyperscalers. All costs in 2024 dollars.
Absolutely insane numbers on data center buildout. I haven’t vetted these by they’re about right based on memory/back of the envelope.
line chart showing how stocks behave after recovering from a 5%-10% pullback,
If you are wondering how stocks behave after recovering from a 5%-10% pullback, history is encouraging >
www.reuters.com/business/sto...
$SPY $SPX $VIX
Only 2 sessions since 1990 with fewer S&P 500 constituents at 52w highs when the benchmark index closed at a record than yesterday:
Nov 13, 2020
March 21, 2000
🚨 NEW TODAY🚨
The @CatoInstitute "Handbook on Affordability," featuring more than 100 policy recommendations to lower the cost of housing, healthcare, education, childcare, energy, transportation, food, everyday essentials , & more:
www.cato.org/handbook-aff...
Mkt is not wrong
1) Economy is still strong
2) Oil at $100 is not the same like it in the past (Inflation, US production etc.)
3) Deficits going parabolic
4) Signals from Fed Gov overall are dovish
5) War dips on avg are b/w 8-9% which it did. Such events are mostly great buying opportunities
Chart of relative frequency of positive versus negative terms from the Beige Book since 1996
Beige Book tilted sharply more optimistic in April. Given firms are unlikely to have felt many direct effects of Iran war-related disruptions, might not last, but it sure looks like the economy had started to accelerate markedly this year before that kicked off.
Line graph titled "U.S. Imports of AI-Related Products" showing data from 2022 to 2026. The vertical axis represents the monthly index, 2023 imports = 100. There are three lines: blue for "AI-Relevant (High)," red for "Not AI-Relevant (Low)," and black for "Aggregate." The "AI-Relevant (High)" line surges, reaching 210.5 by 2026. The "Not AI-Relevant (Low)" and "Aggregate" lines fluctuate moderately, ending at 86.1 and 103.6, respectively.
How important is the #AI boom to U.S. trade? Very! Our Monetary Advisor Mike Waugh (using AI to sift the data) finds AI-related products comprised 23% of U.S. imports in 2025 -- growing 73% in two years, versus 3% for all others. https://bit.ly/4cLJXRX
S&P 500 total returns from:
Liberation Day bottom +41%
Inflation bottom +104%
Covid bottom +238%
Euro crisis bottom +715%
GFC bottom +1292%
awealthofcommonsense.com/2026/04/tops...
Yesterday's Index put/call ratio was .70. It hasn't been lower in at least 5 yrs but it was .71 in early September 2024
US Treasury Secretary Bessent: Treasury sees no systemic risk in private credit
Is this organic or due to higher levels of leverage?
Spr reserves should help with that
2 is very difficult if deficits are going to be running over 6% with unemployment rate below 5%.
“.. Inflation was coming down in the United States — and then Trump’s tariffs happened.”
@heathmayo.bsky.social
Economists at the Dallas Fed try to model the effects on PCE inflation of a one-, two-, or three-quarter disruption of oil shipping through Hormuz
The model projects WTI prices peaking at $110, $132, or $167 per barrel depending on the length of the closure www.dallasfed.org/~/media/docu...
Mkt may view this gap as a one-off and likely moves on. Valuations reverting to pre-war levels on an earnings basis can do the heavy lifting there. Deficits are going parabolic, that should help the valuation story
Deficits are going parabolic (likely 6-7%), another tailwind for equities
It’s hard for me to make a bearish case for stocks at the moment based on:
-earnings momentum/valuation
-AI capex
-employment
-housing (relative to expectations)
-inflation (relative to expectations)
Obviously markets can go up or down for any reason, but the setup feels cleanish here.
WEI LI BlackRock: EPS forecasts have never been better.
And it's not just US tech