The Morning Call
4/23/26
The
Market
Technical
Wednesday in the
charts.
Summary:
Ceasefire schmeasefire' - oil prices are back above yesterday's
highs after Iran struck 3 ships in the Strait, but stocks
continue to dream of post-conflict 'good times' based on solid
earnings (hope), despite very narrow breadth. Bonds also shrugged
off oil's angst as big-tech and bitcoin ripped higher. Gold
and the dollar were unch.
Wednesday in the technical stats.
https://www.barchart.com/stocks/momentum
https://www.barchart.com/stocks/market-performance
https://www.barchart.com/stocks/sectors/rankings
https://www.barchart.com/stocks/signals/new-recommendations
The easy part is
behind us.
Summary:
Month end pension rebalancing here will be sizeable with our first cut of
estimates +$20bn for sale (still a bit early to worry about this). So
yes, there is still hope around earnings, and the economy is holding in, but
the market is also beginning to ask harder questions about terminal valuation
and forward multiples. The key point now is that the forced buying is much
further along. If you are chasing from here, you really have to believe the
benign outcome is not just probable but durable…the easy part of the rebound
looks largely behind us.
Gold and silver
going higher.
(3)
Gold And Silver Prices "Going Much Higher"
Gold and silver
going lower.
https://talkmarkets.com/article/worse-for-gold-than-active-war-1776876929
Traders abandon
bullish dollar bets.
https://giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/actions/redeem/3092e90b-be01-49f7-bda8-569ad08d8403
Thursday morning
setup: US equity futures are lower, but rapidly rising and now at premarket
highs after a CCTV
report that talks between Iran and the US in Pakistan may see a
breakthrough "tonight or tomorrow"; still the optimism of recent days
is being tested, with peace talks in limbo, software concerns reemerging and
the bond market flashing warning signals. As of 8:15am ET, S&P 500 futures,
and Nasdaq 100 contract both fell 0.1%, recovering almost all of their 0.8%
overnight drop. Pre-market, Mag 7 are mostly lower with TSLA (-2.8%) and MSFT
(-1.6%) lagging. Overnight, we saw a slew of positive semi earnings in Asia: SK
Hynix sets record quarterly profits. Oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz
ground to a halt after Iran fired on commercial ships and said it had seized at
least two vessels, while the US military intercepted two Iranian oil
supertankers that tried to evade its blockade. Brent rose 0.9% to around
$103 a barrel as the US and Iran kept blocking the Strait of Hormuz.
The dollar advanced 0.2%, while Treasury yields climbed across the curve.
Precious metals are recovering overnight losses and base metals are all higher.
In premarket trading, Mag 7 stocks are all lower: Tesla (TSLA) falls 3% after
the electric-vehicle maker boosted its capital expenditures to more than $25
billion for the year to support Elon Musk’s ambition to transform his firm into
an AI and robotics company (Microsoft -1.9%, Amazon -0.4%, Nvidia -0.5%, Meta
-1.5%, Alphabet -0.5%, Apple -0.1%)
Fundamental
Headlines
The
Economy
US
Weekly initial
jobless claims totaled 214,000 versus consensus of 212,000.
The
March Chicago national activity index came in at -0.2 versus expectations of
+0.2.
International
The Q2
UK business optimism index was -61 versus estimates of -23; the April industrial
trends orders index was -38 versus -30.
The
April Japanese flash manufacturing PMI was 54.9 versus expectations of 51.2; the flash services PMI was 51.2 versus 52.0;
the flash composite PMI was 52.4 versus 51.2; the April German flash
manufacturing PMI was 51.2 versus 51.3; the flash
services PMI was 46.9 versus 50.3; the flash composite PMI was 48.3 versus 51.1;
the April EU flash manufacturing PMI was 52.2
versus 50.8; the flash services PMI was 47.4
versus 49.9; the flash composite PMI was 48.1 versus 50.2; the April UK flash manufacturing PMI was 53.6 versus 49.9;
the flash services PMI was 52.0 versus 50.0; the flash composite PMI was 52.0
versus 49.8.
Other
A different kind of GDP nowcast.
https://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2026/04/climbing-limo-gdp-forecast-for-2026-q1.html
A deep dive into Tuesday’s retail sales figures.
Update on big four recession indicators.
https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2026/04/21/the-big-four-recession-indicators
Updating the long leading indicators.
https://bonddad.blogspot.com/2026/04/updating-long-leading-indicators.html
Iran
Overnight news:
Supply
chains will change as a result of the war.
Monetary
Policy
One way to know if Warsh is up to the job.
Fiscal
Policy
Government spending
doesn’t cause rising prices; it is the Fed’s monetization of that spending that
does.
Tariffs
Update on the tariff
war. (Bear in mind that there were noneconomic reasons [not mentioned] behind
the tariffs. Still the economic analysis is spot on.)
https://ritholtz.com/2026/04/post-scotus-tariff-war-update/
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