Good Afternoon. Powell delivered his presumed final FOMC decision — holding at 3.50–3.75% with the most dissent since 1992 and Kevin Warsh's nomination one Senate vote from confirmation. Brent ran another 4.8% to $116 after Trump-Iran talks stalled and oil started doing real damage to corporate guides — GE HealthCare cut, Booking cut, and the read-through on the rest of consumer is getting worse. And tonight, Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon all step up to defend the half-trillion-dollar AI capex story that just got a "demand miss" headline yesterday. Buckle up.

—Rosie, Wyatt, Evan & Conor

🔥 What’s Hot: 🔥

🥶 What’s Not: 🥶

1. Powell's Last Stand — Fed Holds, Most Dissent Since 1992

The News: The Federal Reserve held its target range at 3.50%–3.75% in what is likely Jerome Powell's final FOMC meeting as chair. The post-meeting statement noted "inflation elevated, partly reflecting the recent increase in global energy prices," and the vote produced the highest level of dissent since 1992 as committee members split over a $116 Brent and a Hormuz blockade. Earlier today, the Senate Banking Committee cleared Kevin Warsh on a party-line vote to succeed Powell; the full Senate is expected to confirm within days.

Why It Matters: For investors, this is a "no cuts in 2026" tape getting more credible by the meeting — the dot-plot dispersion is now wide enough that the next chair will inherit a divided room and a stagflation set-up. For consumers, the message from Powell's press conference was the most explicit acknowledgment yet that energy is now the binding constraint on rate cuts. Mortgage rates, which had been drifting lower, just lost their tailwind.

What to Watch: Warsh's confirmation timeline and any signaling on his approach to the dot plot. He's historically more hawkish on inflation than Powell, which means the front-end of the curve has more to reprice if confirmation lands fast.

Source: CNBC

2. Four of the Mag 7 Tonight — A Half-Trillion-Dollar AI Capex Story

The News: Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon all report after the bell today, the single biggest earnings night of 2026. The four companies committed to more than $500 billion in combined 2026 capital expenditure, with Meta's guidance alone implying a 67–97% jump versus 2025. The setup is uniquely brutal after yesterday's WSJ report that OpenAI is missing internal user and revenue targets — which sent Oracle down 7% and SoftBank to its worst session in six months.

Why It Matters: For investors, this is the night the "AI ROI" debate either gets settled or postponed by a quarter. Microsoft's commercial RPO is roughly 45% concentrated in OpenAI; Meta's capex needs to be defended with another quarter of >20% ad-revenue growth; Alphabet's Cloud has to match the 48% Q4 print; Amazon needs to show AWS reaccelerating. Any miss from any one of them resets the whole "AI-adjacent" trade lower into May.

What to Watch: Forward capex commentary on 2027, plus the share of capex allocated to compute versus data center buildout. The market is hunting for any sign that the supercycle's intensity is plateauing.

Source: Yahoo Finance Singapore

3. GE HealthCare Cuts Guidance, -13%

The News: GE HealthCare reported Q1 adjusted EPS of $0.99 (a miss) on revenue of $5.1 billion (a beat) and cut full-year profit guidance, sending shares down approximately 13% to a fresh 12-month low. Management cited a roughly $100 million increase in memory-chip costs, another ~$100 million in oil and freight inflation, plus a supplier disruption in pharmaceutical diagnostics. The company also announced a plan to merge its two largest segments to "enhance operational efficiency."

Why It Matters: For investors, this is the cleanest read-out yet on how the Hormuz oil shock is feeding through to non-energy industrials — and how the AI memory cycle is squeezing every customer that isn't building data centers. For consumers, expect medical-equipment prices to follow with a lag; healthcare CapEx pass-throughs typically show up in 2027 commercial insurance premium negotiations.

What to Watch: Whether other medtech and industrial names follow with similar guide-downs over the next two weeks. If they do, "input-cost inflation" becomes the dominant Q2 narrative — and the Fed's job gets even harder.

Source: Wall Street Journal

4. Robinhood -9% as Q1 Revenue Drops 17% Sequentially

The News: Robinhood reported Q1 revenue of $1.067 billion, down 17% from a record Q4 2025, and net profit of $350 million, down 42% sequentially. The driver: cryptocurrency revenue collapsed 39% quarter-over-quarter to $134 million as a 2026 crypto slump bit. Equity (+46%) and "other transaction revenue" (event contracts and prediction markets +320%) partly offset the damage, but shares fell as much as 9% after-hours. Robinhood also raised its 2026 OpEx guide by $100 million tied to building Trump Accounts.

Why It Matters: For investors, Robinhood is a leveraged proxy for retail risk-on appetite, and Q1 just told you that appetite cooled hard once Bitcoin lost its $80K handle. For consumers — particularly the 27.4 million funded customers — the company's reach into prediction markets and Robinhood Banking is the bull case; the bear case is that core trading is finally seeing its first real revenue decel since 2024.

What to Watch: April monthly metrics — management said equity and option volumes are "on track to be the highest month of the year." If May follows through, the stock can rebuild. If it doesn't, the $77 handle is a stop on the way to the low-$60s.

Source: FX News Group

5. Booking Holdings -6% — Gas Prices Hit Travel for Real

The News: Booking Holdings beat Q1 on every line — gross bookings of $53.8 billion (+15%), revenue of $5.5 billion (+16%), adjusted EBITDA of $1.3 billion (+19%) — and then cut the midpoint of its 2026 outlook on the same call. CEO Glenn Fogel said the Middle East conflict shaved approximately 2 percentage points off room-night growth in the quarter, with March alone hit by 6 points. EBITDA margin expansion guidance was cut roughly in half to 0–25 basis points. Year-to-date losses now exceed 20%.

Why It Matters: For investors, this is the cleanest "war is now in the numbers" earnings print of the cycle. Booking pulled the midpoint but kept the high-end of the range — meaning management is still betting on a Hormuz resolution by end-Q2. If that doesn't happen, the next cut comes in July. For consumers, expect more Mediterranean and Middle East airfare deals and a continued shift in summer-travel demand toward the Americas.

What to Watch: Expedia and Airbnb prints next week, plus daily commentary from major U.S. airlines on transatlantic load factors. If the cancellation rate keeps elevated, the entire travel complex re-rates lower.

Source: Benzinga

6. Brent Rises Another 4.8% to $116.62

The News: Brent crude advanced 4.82% to $116.62 a barrel, taking the cumulative move from January's $61.41 to roughly +90% year-to-date. The catalyst was a stalling in U.S.-Iran negotiations, which Trump said would need "several more days," combined with renewed UAE-Saudi tension following Tuesday's UAE OPEC exit. Canada's TSX dropped 200+ points despite an energy boost, while WTI traded around $110.

Why It Matters: For investors, $116 is the level at which historical demand-destruction models start to predict actual U.S. recession risk — not just margin compression. The $116 spot price implies a roughly $5 retail-gas-price floor by mid-summer once the wholesale-to-pump lag clears. For consumers, the May credit-card statement is going to be ugly across food (transport-driven) and travel (jet fuel-driven).

What to Watch: Whether Saudi Arabia announces an emergency unilateral production increase to defend price ceilings, and U.S. SPR release commentary from Treasury. If neither comes by Friday, $120 Brent is the next stop.

Source: Trading Economics

7. Lloyds Pre-Tax Profit +33% but Shares Slip — FTSE 100 Hits Month Low

The News: Lloyds Banking Group reported Q1 pre-tax profit of £2.0 billion, up 33% year-on-year, with net interest income at £3.57 billion (a beat) and net interest margin at 3.17%. Despite the strong results, shares slipped 1.8% as the FTSE 100 dropped 1.16% to its lowest level since April 1. AstraZeneca, GSK, and Haleon all weighed after sticking to existing full-year guidance. GSK fell 5.4% on the day.

Why It Matters: For investors, Lloyds is the bellwether for UK consumer credit health, and the read here is mixed: net interest is fine, but loan-loss provisions are starting to creep at the consumer end. For the broader FTSE, a "good Lloyds" couldn't pull the index out of a tape dragged down by pharma — meaning the safety-trade rotation that defined Q1 is finally exhausting.

What to Watch: Whether Bank of England signals a faster pace of cuts after the May meeting given the FTSE weakness, and if pharma names get bid back as defensives if oil finally tops.

Source: Saxo Markets

8. China & Hong Kong Decouple — Hang Seng +1.2%, CSI 300 +1.1% as Wall Street Stumbles

The News: Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 1.2% and Mainland China's CSI 300 added 1.1% to close at 4,810.35, even as the S&P 500 and Nasdaq sold off overnight on the OpenAI-miss headlines. South Korea's Kospi tacked on 0.75% to 6,615; Australia's ASX 200 was the regional laggard at -0.27%. Japan was closed for the Showa Day holiday, removing the SoftBank drag from the average.

Why It Matters: For investors, this is the first session of 2026 in which China and Hong Kong meaningfully outperformed the U.S. without an obvious catalyst — suggesting a quiet rotation underway as global money looks for a tape that isn't levered to the AI capex debate. China's industrial profits +15.8% in March did the heavy lifting earlier this week. For global asset allocators, the weakening dollar plus a Powell-final tape gives the China trade fresh legs.

What to Watch: Whether Mainland flow continues into Thursday's session and whether any mention of yuan stability appears in PBoC commentary. A continued outperformance into Friday would mark the first technical decoupling since 2024.

Source: CNBC

Q: Why did the computer go to urgent care?

A: To see if it had a virus.

The exposure that arises when too large a share of a portfolio's revenue, asset value, or counterparty risk is tied to a single customer, sector, or geography — meaning one bad outcome can produce an outsized hit.

Usage: "About 45% of Microsoft's commercial RPO is tied to OpenAI — a textbook Concentration Risk that the rest of the backlog has to grow into before the next earnings cycle."

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