1. The Fed, the Bank of Canada, GDP — Data Heavy Week
The Fed kicks off its two-day FOMC meeting today, with a decision on Wednesday —nearly everyone expects a hold at 3.50–3.75%, and they’re probably right given March CPI came in at a hot.
Tomorrow the Bank of Canada announces too, also expected to hold at 2.25%.
Then Thursday, we get the advance Q1 GDP print for the U.S., and Canadian monthly GDP stats. For the U.S., the Atlanta Fed GDP no is saying 1.2% at the time of writing.
Overall, slow growth, and stubborn inflation could potentially start some nasty conversations this week?
2. Oil Crosses $100 Again…
WTI crossed $100 a barrel this morning and Brent crude is trading above $110. As it stands, starting to look like $90-$100 range as a base case scenario.
Oil popping today as President Trump rejected Iran’s latest proposal. From what we can gather, markets are essentially reading it as a prolonged closure.
Oh! And UAE is getting out of OPEC as of May 1st.
While oil is major thing passing through the strait – and everyone talking about it. But, there are other key things that shouldn’t be overlooked. For example, fertilizers not being able to pass through can cause some dire consequences.
Have you looked at what’s happening in aluminum and copper market lately?
3. Gold Pulls Back – Key Levels To Watch
If you are not paying attention to the charts, you are missing some key things…
Gold, as identified few times here already, could not go above its 50-day moving average. In fact, it was very reactive to it in mid-April. This morning down over 2% to $4,575.
Silver briefly showed resilience above 50-day moving average but couldn’t hold above. Down 3.8% as of this writing.
$4,100-$4,200 for gold, and $67-70 for silver remain very important levels. Move below these ranges could be very dangerous.
4. Stocks Hit Records. Does Anything Actually Matter?
The S&P 500 closed at a record yesterday, Nasdaq hit a new all-time high too.
Just so we are clear: oil is at $100, CPI at 3.3%, GDP tracking near stall speed, the Strait of Hormuz closed — and the stock market shrugs and goes to new highs.
It’s worth asking: does any of this bad news actually matter to stocks right now? Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Alphabet all report Wednesday. This is on top for the Fed.
So, the market has a lot of ammo for a decently large sized move here.
We think the risk is that at some point the macro punches back. We just don’t know when. That’s the most dangerous kind of market to be complacent in. Not a bad idea to follow the direction but stops become extremely important. There are some gaps that went unchecked.
5. Canada Getting A Sovereign Wealth Fund
Prime Minister Mark Carney announced the Canada Strong Fund yesterday — a $25 billion sovereign wealth fund seeded over three years to invest in domestic energy, critical minerals, advanced manufacturing, and infrastructure.
Think of it as Canada’s version of Norway’s oil fund but built from scratch. The timing is notable: this comes as the U.S.-Canada trade relationship is strained by tariffs, oil at $100 is a windfall for Canadian energy, and Ottawa clearly wants to put some of that capital to work strategically.
It’s a smart long-term move at the moment. But still lots of gray area here to let’s see how this plays out. It would be very interesting if there’s some sort of “dividends,” that get paid out to Canadians too. No one is saying it, but that could be a good sell.