Hi Everyone,

No time to write an excuse for why I’m three weeks late, so let’s dive into things.

Word of the Week

Field day (n.)

A time of great excitement, opportunity, or unrestricted enjoyment. Originally a military term referring to a day of outdoor exercises, it is now used almost exclusively to describe a situation where someone has an unusually easy or enjoyable time, frequently in the context of criticism, mockery, or taking advantage of circumstances.

• When the CEO accidentally sent an internal memo to the entire company mailing list, the press had an absolute field day, running the story for three consecutive news cycles.

• Opposing lawyers had a field day with the witness, whose contradictory answers made the entire defense look unprepared.

• The rival team had a field day in the second half, scoring four unanswered goals against a side that had run out of steam.

What’s Happening in the News

The JPMorgan Lawsuit That Broke the Internet

A lawsuit filed against JPMorgan Chase executive Lorna Hajdini went viral after a former junior employee named Chirayu Rana accused her of sexual harassment, racial abuse, and coercion. The complaint alleged she used her senior position to pressure him into non-consensual sexual acts and repeatedly used racially charged language while threatening his career.

JPMorgan denied everything, stating that an internal investigation found no merit to the claims, and noted that Rana had refused to participate in that investigation. Shortly after the story exploded online, the lawsuit was returned to the complainant's legal team for corrections and then withdrawn entirely.

Despite its legal collapse, the story took on a life of its own, largely because it flipped the usual script on workplace misconduct stories by featuring a senior woman allegedly abusing a junior male employee. The internet had a field day. Whether the allegations were true, exaggerated, or completely fabricated remains unclear, but the episode became less about the actual case and more about what it revealed: that people are hungry for stories that challenge the usual narrative, and that a lawsuit does not need to survive in court to cause serious reputational damage and generate weeks of headlines.

Third Assassination Attempt on Trump

On April 25th, while Trump, Vice President Vance, and most of the cabinet attended the White House Correspondents' Dinner at the Washington Hilton, a 31-year-old man named Cole Allen from Torrance, California attempted to assassinate the president. This was the third such attempt against Trump. He checked into the hotel the day before with a pump-action shotgun, a .38 caliber handgun, and three knives. Just walked right in. He even wrote in his manifesto that he was "surprised they just let him check in." So were we, Cole.

The following evening, Allen rushed a security checkpoint and fired his shotgun. One Secret Service agent was shot in the chest but was wearing a bulletproof vest and recovered that night. Agents returned fire, Allen was arrested, and Trump's cabinet was evacuated unharmed.

The real question nobody is answering: how does someone walk into a hotel hosting the entire U.S. government during an active war, after two previous attempts on the president's life, with two loaded guns and three knives? If he had brought a bomb instead, this would be a very different story. The Secret Service's failure here is not a minor detail.

Within hours of the attempt, every major pro-Trump influencer posted essentially the same message: "This is why we need a White House ballroom." Word for word. Political influencers are routinely paid to push specific talking points, no questions asked, no engagement requirements. A man nearly wiped out the executive branch, and the coordinated response was a pitch for an event venue.

Trump's New Passport Look

If you renew your U.S. passport soon, you'll find a portrait of Donald Trump printed inside the booklet. Critics called it an overstep. Supporters called it bold. The next president will presumably replace it with their own face, accidentally starting a new American tradition. For voters who were promised mass deportations and a border wall, a redesigned passport feels like getting a birthday card when you asked for a car.

The DOJ Hits Back: SPLC Indicted

The Southern Poverty Law Center was indicted by the DOJ on federal fraud charges, and the details reveal a lot about how the organization actually operates.

The SPLC was founded during the civil rights era and built its reputation and fundraising around the idea that it was on the front lines of fighting hate groups and extremism in America. For decades, it has maintained a widely cited "hate group" list that has been used by corporations, banks, and tech platforms to justify cutting off funding, payment processing, and access to organizations the SPLC labels as dangerous. Being put on that list has effectively destroyed careers and organizations, which is what makes the SPLC so powerful and so controversial.

Critics have long argued that the SPLC exploits the threat of hate groups to raise enormous amounts of money, labeling even mainstream conservative organizations as "hate groups" to keep donors alarmed and donations flowing. The organization sits on over a billion dollars in assets, a remarkable sum for a nonprofit, and has faced internal scandals including the firing of its co-founder over allegations of workplace misconduct.

Now comes the fraud indictment. According to the DOJ, the SPLC secretly paid informants inside far-right extremist groups for nearly 50 years, funneling over $3 million to members of the KKK, neo-Nazi organizations, and groups involved in the 2017 Charlottesville rally. One informant received over $1 million between 2014 and 2023. Another was paid $270,000 and helped coordinate transportation to Charlottesville, at the SPLC's direction. The fraud charge is straightforward: donors were told their money was fighting extremism, while it was quietly going to the extremists themselves. Charges include wire fraud, bank fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

The SPLC says the program was legitimate intelligence gathering shared with law enforcement. Legal experts are divided on whether the charges will hold up in court, but the indictment is the most significant legal action the Trump DOJ has taken against a major left-wing institution so far.

Daily Wire Is Having a Very Bad Week

Ben Shapiro's conservative media company confirmed a significant round of layoffs at its Nashville headquarters, the second such round in 2025. Former employee Candace Owens suggested the cuts may have hit over 50% of staff; the company disputed that number. Viewership and subscriber numbers have declined sharply, and this is a steep fall for a company that was once reportedly the second-largest advertiser on Facebook by impressions.

The deeper issue is that the Daily Wire's aggressive pro-Israel editorial line has driven away a large portion of its audience, which has migrated to independent voices like Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, and Candace Owens. But here is where it gets interesting: outlets like the Daily Wire do not actually need to turn a profit to survive. They function as ideological platforms subsidized by wealthy donors, and when they run out of money, someone tends to write a check. A clear example is Barry Weiss, whose startup The Free Press was acquired by tech billionaire Larry Ellison for $150 million before Weiss was installed as editor-in-chief of CBS News, despite never having built a mass audience. Meanwhile, Alex Jones, who was genuinely popular and reportedly earning $50 million a year, was shut down after a $1 billion legal judgment from the Sandy Hook defamation case. Candace Owens is currently facing defamation suits from French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, as well as from the former head of Turning Point USA's security. The pattern is hard to miss: independent voices face legal and financial destruction, while institutional ones get bailed out.

Tucker Carlson, J.D. Vance, and the Fight Over the Future of the GOP

Tucker Carlson sat down with the New York Times and the most revealing parts were not about Iran or Trump. They were about where the American right is headed.

On the future of conservatism, Tucker made a clear argument: the big issues going forward are economic, not cultural or identity-based. He said young people's frustrations are really about a lack of jobs and housing, not immigration or demographic change, and predicted that future political energy would center on economic grievances. Critics of this view argue Tucker is deliberately downplaying the issues that have actually driven grassroots conservative politics for the past decade.

On J.D. Vance, Tucker was noticeably guarded. He said he would "always love J.D. Vance as a man" but struggled to answer basic questions, like when they last spoke, or why Tucker's son Buckley recently left his position in Vance's office. On the son question, Tucker deflected entirely. He did say Vance has faced "nonstop treachery" from neoconservative factions inside the White House, people aligned with Marco Rubio, but declined to name anyone specifically.

The Iran War Is "Over." Sort Of.

President Trump officially declared an end to "Operation Epic Fury" this week, formally concluding the United States' military campaign against Iran after roughly two months of fighting. What he did not announce was any of the objectives the war was supposed to achieve.

Iran has not given up its nuclear program. Its missile capabilities remain intact. Its network of regional proxy forces is still in place. The regime is still standing. The Strait of Hormuz is still closed, with both the U.S. naval blockade and Iran's own closure still in effect. A briefly announced U.S. Navy operation to escort commercial ships through the Strait was quietly cancelled after just three ships made it through. The UAE has reportedly come under new Iranian attacks.

The war cost an estimated $50 billion. Multiple U.S. military bases in the region were damaged or destroyed. Energy rationing has begun in parts of Europe and Asia, and gas prices in some American cities are approaching $6 a gallon. The administration says diplomacy is ongoing, but there are no negotiations currently taking place and no terms have been agreed to.

It ends not with a parade, but with a press release.

What’s Happening in the Markets

🛢️ Oil

Despite Trump's official declaration ending "Operation Epic Fury," WTI crude remains around $102, down from a high of $112 on April 2nd, as the Strait of Hormuz remains closed and the underlying supply disruption is unchanged. The buffer preventing a sharper price spike is global inventory, estimated at roughly 8.4 billion barrels total, but accessible market-ready supply is far smaller, with analyst estimates ranging from 800 million to 2.8 billion barrels depending on methodology. At 12 million barrels per day of sustained disruption, that buffer draws down over roughly 70 to 235 days. The panic trigger won't be the last drop; it will come when inventory levels fall to the point the market reads as critically low, and that point gets closer each week the strait stays shut. Technically, crude is holding above the psychological $100 level and above the midpoint of its prior range near $98, pointing to continued buyer control. Analysts are openly projecting $200/barrel if the disruption holds; the 2008 nominal high near $147 is the first major reference point.

📉 Inflation, Stagflation & Consumer Impact

The conditions for stagflation are converging in textbook fashion: a severe supply shock layered on top of already elevated monetary expansion. M2 is growing at 10.6% annually while official CPI sits around 2.4%, with the next print forecast at 3.1%. Since the conflict began, corn is up roughly 14%, soybeans 15%, and wheat 21%, as energy costs transmit directly into fertilizer prices and flow through agriculture. At the pump, the national average has risen to $4.44/gallon, up roughly 40% year-over-year, with some markets approaching $6; diesel sits at $5.64, a 59% jump, and both are approaching their 2022 record highs. Food price inflation typically lags an energy shock by several months, meaning the full grocery bill pain still lies ahead. Spirit Airlines became the first high-profile corporate casualty, with surging jet fuel costs delivering a fatal blow to its already strained balance sheet and eliminating 17,000 jobs overnight. The compounding variable that distinguishes this cycle from the 1970s is $39 trillion in national debt at roughly 120% debt-to-GDP. The Fed cannot cut without pouring fuel on inflation, and cannot hike aggressively because the government is already paying over $1 trillion annually in interest on short-duration Treasuries being continuously rolled. The path of least resistance is to hold and absorb, which produces exactly the stagflationary outcome: weakening growth, rising unemployment, and prices that won't come down.

🏦 Fed Watch & Bonds Under Pressure

Rate cut expectations have collapsed entirely. CME FedWatch puts the probability of no cut at the most recent FOMC meeting at 97%, with that no-cut probability holding at 88-92% through September. More significantly, the market has now opened the door to rate hikes, an option that did not appear in the probability distribution as recently as two months ago. The Fed's balance sheet has grown from roughly $6.05 trillion at year-end to $6.27 trillion as of late March, with approximately $40 billion printed monthly into T-bills and Treasuries. US Treasury bonds have fallen roughly 5% since the start of the conflict, wiping approximately $1.2 trillion in market value. The 10-year yield sits at 4.43% and trending higher, and the 2-year yield has moved back above the Fed funds rate of 3.75%. The last time this happened was 2022, after which long-term yields climbed from 2% to 5% in a matter of months. The deeper risk is the term premium, currently near zero, which sat above 2% during each of the three prior major oil shocks in 1973, 1979, and 1990. Normalization to even 1-2% would push the 30-year yield to 6-7%, levels not seen in over 30 years, dragging mortgage rates, corporate borrowing costs, and credit card rates higher across the board.

📊 Equities & Market Mechanics

The S&P 500 is at all-time highs of 7,259, up 6% year-to-date, with futures pointing to further gains. The rally emerged not from economic optimism but from leverage mechanics. Heading into the April 7th ceasefire announcement, hedge fund short exposure to macro ETFs had reached its highest level since the pandemic, with gross leverage near 300%. Trump's announcement triggered a classic short squeeze: forced buybacks pushed prices higher, triggering more margin calls, which triggered more buying. Goldman Sachs data showed systematic trend-following funds had to flip roughly $86 billion in equity exposure from short to long across just five sessions, one of the top-five buying speed prints in Goldman's records, while options dealer hedging added a third mechanical layer on top. Notably, on April 2nd, stocks, bonds, and oil all closed higher simultaneously, an inflation signal rather than a growth one. The VIX is tracing the late-cycle pattern visible at both the 2000 tech top and the 2007 real estate peak: higher lows forming as prices grind higher, a sign of rising systemic stress. Today, 63% of US stock fund assets are passive, the Magnificent Seven account for over 33% of the S&P 500, and same-day expiration options represent roughly 63% of all S&P trading. The dominant market participants are not analyzing valuations. They are reacting to price, and their reactions stack mechanically on top of each other. Historical data offers some comfort: in years where April posts gains above 4.8%, the S&P has finished higher from May through December roughly 88% of the time, with an average gain near 17%.

💻 Tech & Semiconductors

Technology, and specifically semiconductors, is the primary engine of the S&P's move to all-time highs. Semiconductors now constitute roughly 17% of the index, nearly half of the broader tech sector's 35% weighting, and capital is flowing in aggressively. Intel surged 13% overnight on May 5th and is up 114% since April, following a blowout earnings report where it delivered 29 cents per share against a 1-cent Wall Street consensus, its best performance in roughly 50 years. Demand for AI chips is running so hot that customers are reportedly paying premiums for chips that failed quality testing, simply to get their hands on any available silicon. A Bloomberg report suggesting Apple may be in discussions with Intel and Samsung about domestic chip manufacturing added further fuel. Micron Technology climbed 11% on the announcement of a 245-terabyte solid-state drive aimed at AI data centers, alongside a Fitch credit upgrade. Qualcomm rose 10.8% and SanDisk 12%. The concentration of outsized gains in a single narrow subsector is a hallmark of late-cycle blow-off dynamics, worth participating in with eyes open.

⚠️ 18-Year Cycle & Smart Money Positioning

The late-stage positioning of several major investors is becoming difficult to ignore. Berkshire Hathaway now holds $397 billion in cash and Treasury bills, its largest defensive position in 60 years, and Warren Buffett described current market conditions at the May 2nd annual meeting as "a church with an attached casino." The cash build began in late 2022, the exact start of the second half of the 18-year real estate cycle, and net equity selling has extended for 14 consecutive quarters at an accelerating pace. Ray Dalio named stagflation without qualification on April 27th and outlined 2026-2028 as the critical window before the debt cycle removes the option to course-correct. Gary Shilling has published a forecast calling for a 20-30% S&P correction by year-end, citing valuation compression from 21x forward earnings back toward the historical mean of 16x. Jamie Dimon has warned the next credit recession will be worse than most expect, pointing to $870 billion in commercial real estate refinancing this calendar year, CMBS distress at record levels, and private credit funds quietly halting redemptions. The homebuilders ETF (XHB) recently broke below a key 50% support level, and the NAHB housing market index has printed below the 50-point break-even line for 24 consecutive months, a beat-for-beat repeat of the 2005-2006 pattern. In the 18-year cycle framework, homebuilders top first, broad equities follow, and gold confirms the turn. Signal one has fired.

₿ Bitcoin

Bitcoin is trading around $81,000, having recovered from lows in the $65,000 range seen in prior weeks. The short-term trend has turned upward since late March, printing higher lows on daily timeframes. However, the macro structure remains under pressure: breaking the long-term downtrend requires a sustained move above roughly $98,000, the last meaningful lower high. The $80,000 zone, which marked the major November low, is now acting as overhead resistance where old support has become supply, and consecutive closes above it with higher lows are needed to confirm continuation toward the next pivot near $93,000. Stablecoin dominance has not broken below key structural levels, meaning fresh liquidity has not yet flooded back into the asset class. On April 2nd, a session where equities, bonds, and oil all closed higher together, Bitcoin declined. The market is currently treating it as neither an inflation hedge nor a risk-on asset. The Fear & Greed Index recently reached neutral for the first time since the January lower high, a pattern that in prior cycles preceded either base-building and recovery or a final breakdown. The base case of a Q3 potential low, with a broader range of $40,000-$60,000 still possible before sustainable recovery, has not been invalidated.

💰 Gold

Gold is at $4,655, up over 2% on the day, but has been broadly consolidating since its parabolic run earlier in the year. The $4,400 support level held on a closing basis, preserving the higher-timeframe bull structure, and a push back through $4,900 would confirm near-term stabilization. Identified sellers during the recent pullback include Russia, liquidating reserves to fund foreign imports with dollar and euro access frozen, and Turkey, selling to defend the lira against roughly 35-39% domestic inflation. Critically, government bonds are not performing their traditional wartime safe-haven role. Yields are rising across the board as capital loses confidence in sovereign debt, a condition that historically redirects flows toward gold. Central bank accumulation remains the structural backdrop, with 860 tons purchased globally in 2025, the 16th consecutive year of net buying, and ongoing repatriation of physical gold from New York vaults by France, India, and Poland further reducing available float. The macro bull case remains intact provided $4,400 holds on a closing basis.

🥈 Silver & COMEX Inventory

COMEX registered silver inventory has fallen from above 160 million ounces in November to roughly 76 million ounces today, less than half its level from five months ago. Open interest for the nearest delivery month currently represents approximately 364 million ounces against those 76 million registered ounces. Last May, 75.6 million ounces were physically delivered, nearly exactly the current available inventory; if industrial buyers step in for physical delivery rather than cash settling again, the registered buffer compresses toward zero. Shanghai silver is trading at a meaningful premium to COMEX, reflecting the ongoing physical drain to Asian buyers. Silver itself is at $75.66, up nearly 4% on the day, having corrected sharply from the $95-$120 range hit earlier in the year. For those who entered when the gold-silver ratio sat above 100, partial rotation out of paper positions while retaining physical metal has been a disciplined approach that recovers original capital while maintaining hard asset exposure. The macro uptrend remains intact; $60 is the line to watch on the downside.

That’s all for this week, see you next time!