1. Hot Data, Fed Chatter — Watch the Narrative
March CPI landed at 3.3% year-over-year last Friday — up hard from 2.4% in February — with a monthly print of +0.9%, the biggest one-month jump since June 2022. All thanks to surge in gasoline prices. PPI (producer prices) drops tomorrow, and it might be ugly too.
At 10:00 AM ET we get U.S. existing home sales. Hope was we’d get some support in housing, but yields remain elevated… and so do the mortgage rates in the U.S.
On the Canadian side, building permits cam in much lower than expected month-over-month. This is going into construction season, so let’s see.
Here’s what I am also watching: a string of Fed officials are scheduled to speak this week. With inflation reaccelerating and oil above $100, every word likely be judged. The narrative the Fed builds around it is what the market actually trades. Don’t tune it out.
2. The Hormuz Gambit — Oil Crosses $100
Trump announced a U.S. naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend after the Islamabad peace talks with Iran collapsed. WTI is sitting near $104 as I write this — up over 8%. Brent is right behind at $102. Don’t forget, this is the largest oil supply disruption in modern history and could Trump make it worse?
Understand this one basic thing: the world is reliant on oil. If oil prices remain elevated, this is going to impact everything – things get more expensive.
Our view at Zulfiqar Research: market is still somewhat hopeful, and the pricing isn’t fully there yet. However, it’s important to question what happens right after this bump in price – what’s on the back end of it all. Oil shock is also a demand destruction event.
3. Earnings Season Is Here — Guidance Is What Matters
Goldman Sachs kicked off earnings this morning: Beat on EPS too. But the stock is pulling back. JPMorgan, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo report tomorrow.
Here’s the thing about earnings season with this much uncertainty in the world: the market is already past Q1. What’s already happened is baked in. What isn’t baked in is what companies say about the path ahead — oil shock, tariffs, the consumer.
Guidance is everything right now. And one more reminder: stock-specific risk goes up sharply during earnings season. You can be right on the macro and still get punched in the face by a single number. Know what you own before results hit.
4. Gold and Silver Playing Backwards
Oil pops 8%, gold drops. That’s what’s happening this morning, and there’s some correlation forming here.
Gold is off about 0.8% to around $4,750 and Silver is getting hit even harder — down nearly 3% to around $74. It’s starting to feel like these metals are trading almost as an inverse play on oil: when energy surges, money rotates out of metals and into energy. Safe haven? Not today.
If that’s the new dynamic — metals moving with oil rather than against risk — it changes how you read the signals. But, this is all temporary. Likely capital chasing gains.
Near-term, watch $4,700 on gold. If it can’t hold that level with everything going on, the shakeout gets deeper. On the upside, $4,860 area is critical – need a clear break away from it for upside.
Potential: Silver is building a near trading range: $77-$68. Need a move above of below this range for more direction.
5. The Dollar Wakes Up — The Fed Is in a Corner
The DXY (U.S. Dollar Index) is back above 99 this morning, recovering a little from last week’s losses, and the 10-year Treasury yield is sitting near 4.30% — not collapsing, not spiking. The bond market is on a knife’s edge.
With CPI already hot, oil above $100, PPI due tomorrow, job market remaining dismal: there is no clean move for the central bank. Cut and you pour gasoline on an inflation fire. Hold — or worse, talk hawkish — and you choke growth while an energy shock is already hammering the consumer.
Stagflation is knocking. It’s hard to manage if true. Things can break.