Midweek Macro Note: Fiscal Intervention Expands, BoJ Stays Put, Macro/Earnings Stay Okay, Vision Note

In this Midweek Macro Note - we dive into why markets aren't yet ready for the next impulsive move lower, things backing up the optimism, fiscal intervention, metals deals with Ukraine, and more.

Good Wednesday evening MacroEdge Readers & Community,

As we wind down the month of April (insanity) and turn towards May - we can shift towards an early Summer mode for both macro & markets. In the past week - we’ve seen extensive intervention on the part of the fiscal policymakers (really everything ex-Fed) as of today - as they continue to relentlessly talk and thus walk, equity markets back above the ‘Liberation Day’ date price levels - where the equity selloff worsened eventually dipping to almost 30% off on the IXIC, and similar in other indices. Today we also confirmed a rather ugly GDP picture - driven largely by the Q1 import surge - that contributed to the first negative QoQ print since 2022 (GDP-Adv). In earnings data as we anticipated in March, things are holding up well for the largest companies - particularly the MAGS - as we’ve yet to see any real tariff impact hit these companies. Even though guidance has been either pulled/cautionary for many businesses that have reported - markets have focused on the positives in the last few weeks.

Let’s dive in.

Relentless Fiscal Intervention

The relentless fiscal intervention has expanded of late - with one of our contributors noting today that Trump has now mentioned the stock market explicitly more in one month than Biden did throughout his four years. This is a force that is difficult to overcome (as are global CBs — noted in an early April macro note when the BoJ intervened in markets, along with the BoK), for now. The next catalyst will have to be driven by both a combination of something not priced in (times) - which we discuss below.

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