Good Afternoon. Corporate America is doing what it does best: finding the cheapest money on the planet—say hello to Reverse Yankees. Meanwhile, tax season has a new plot twist with a larger SALT cap (if you itemize), and inflation cooled just enough to put June cuts back in the conversation.

—Rosie, Wyatt, Evan & Conor

🔥 What’s Hot: 🔥

🥶 What’s Not: 🥶

1. Stocks Limp Toward Weekly Losses

The News: Stocks steadied Friday after Thursday’s AI-led selloff, but all three major indexes were still tracking weekly declines, with the Nasdaq the biggest laggard. The catalyst was inflation data: January CPI rose 2.4% YoY (vs. 2.5% expected) and 0.2% MoM (vs. 0.3% expected), helped by cheaper gas and used cars; core CPI held at 2.5% YoY, right in line with forecasts. Treasury yields slipped, with the 10-year hitting its lowest intraday level since early December. Bitcoin bounced to around $68,900.

Why It Matters: A softer headline print helps the June-rate-cut crowd, lowers yields, and gives risk assets a little oxygen—but the unchanged core rate is the reminder that inflation progress is still uneven. Lower gas is the quickest “felt” relief, even if services inflation keeps the overall cost-of-living higher. The weekly loss tells you sentiment is fragile: one day AI is the future, the next day it’s a disruption tax.

What to Watch: Watch whether the bond market keeps easing if the 10-year yield continues to slide, it supports stocks even if earnings are choppy.
Source: wsj.com

2. Wall Street Pushes the First Fed Cut to June

The News: Big Wall Street shops are converging on June 2026 as the most likely start date for the Fed’s next rate cut after a stronger January jobs print and inflation that’s cooling but still above target. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America now expect the first cut in June and about 50 bps of total cuts in 2026, per Reuters. Citi is a bit earlier (now April, pushed back from March) and more aggressive (75 bps), while JPMorgan is the hawkish outlier projecting no cuts in 2026 and the next move being a 25 bp hike in Q3 2027.

Why It Matters: A June start means borrowers probably don’t get meaningful relief in the first half and the housing market doesn’t get the rate tailwind it’s been begging for. Pushing cuts out compresses the window for the classic “rates down → multiples up” trade, especially in rate-sensitive tech and long-duration growth. And the politics adds an extra layer: if cuts begin after May 2026, they likely happen under new Fed leadership—so markets will price not just when cuts come, but how predictable the Fed feels while doing them.

What to Watch: Watch Fed communications into the March meeting—markets are already pricing a very high probability of a hold and watch the Kevin Warsh confirmation timeline, because any hiccups in the leadership transition changes the market’s confidence around the entire 2026 path.
Source: money.usnews.com

3. SALT Cap, Bigger Refunds (If You Itemize)

The News: Taxpayers in high-tax states are seeing bigger refunds this filing season after the SALT deduction cap jumped from $10,000 to $40,000 for tax year 2025 under Trump’s July 2025 tax law. The catch: the benefit mainly goes to filers who itemize (not those taking the standard deduction), and it phases down once modified AGI tops $500,000, reverting to the old $10,000 cap by $600,000, per Bipartisan Policy Center. The higher cap is temporary—rising about 1% a year through 2029 before snapping back to $10,000 in 2030.

Why It Matters: This is a very real, very uneven tax cut—more “refund boost in Westchester” than “nationwide relief.” If you’re an itemizer in places like New York, New Jersey, or California, the bigger SALT cap can meaningfully reduce your federal taxable income, which is why the benefits skew heavily toward high-tax (often blue) states. For the broader economy, bigger refunds can support spring spending at the margin, but it’s not a clean stimulus: it’s targeted, temporary, and income-sensitive. Translation: helpful for some household cash flow, not a magic wand for affordability.

What to Watch: Watch early refund data with a skeptical eye—refund averages swing as higher-income itemizers file, and staffing/processing issues can distort “so far” comparisons. Watch whether Congress tries to extend or rework SALT before the 2030 reset, because that cliff is a guaranteed political food fight.
Source: bipartisanpolicy.org

4. Gold Pops Back Above $5,000 as CPI Cools

The News: Gold climbed back above $5,000/oz Friday after U.S. inflation came in softer than expected, reigniting rate-cut bets. Reuters reported spot gold rose to about $5,022/oz, after a nasty Thursday drop, as January CPI printed +0.2% m/m (vs. +0.3% expected) and +2.4% y/y. The market reaction was immediate: CME’s FedWatch odds of a June 2026 cut jumped to roughly 83%, reversing the more hawkish mood that followed the stronger January jobs report. Silver rebounded too, back around $77–$78/oz after midweek volatility.

Why It Matters: Gold is basically the live scoreboard for “rates down, uncertainty up.” Softer CPI lowers the opportunity cost of holding a non-yielding asset, and it also tells you traders are nervously betting the Fed will blink before the economy cracks. The deeper driver isn’t just inflation math—it’s policy trust: when markets worry about tariffs, geopolitics, and central-bank independence all at once, gold acts like insurance.

What to Watch: Watch real yields and the dollar; if yields fall and the dollar softens, that’s rocket fuel for gold’s next leg.
Source: reuters.com

5. Pinterest Craters on Guidance and Suddenly Looks “Buyable”

The News: Pinterest shares fell roughly 20% after hours after the company guided Q1 revenue to $951M–$971M, below Wall Street’s ~$980M estimate, according to Reuters. Pinterest said ad demand is getting clipped by retailer caution—its CFO pointed to “tariff-related margin pressure” among large U.S. retailers, a core customer base for Pinterest’s home-and-shopping-heavy ad mix. The company also recently announced it will cut less than 15% of its workforce as it shifts resources toward AI, but the market read this quarter as “pressure now, payoff later.”

Why It Matters: Pinterest’s problem is classic ad-tech: it’s tied to retail cycles, and tariffs are acting like a tax on the exact categories Pinterest monetizes best (home goods, furnishings, discretionary shopping). The bigger wrinkle: this selloff makes Pinterest look less like a growth story and more like an asset—a platform with ~619M monthly active users and a massive library of visual intent data (what people want to buy, how they style it, what they save). That’s catnip for AI companies building visual search, shopping agents, and ad-targeting models—especially if they want something “cleaner” than the open web and more commerce-linked than a social graph. Not saying a deal is coming, but when a stock gets repriced this hard, “strategic interest” becomes a word that gets thrown around.

What to Watch: Watch whether Pinterest’s next update shows stabilization in U.S. retailer spend (especially home/furnishings), because if tariffs stay the excuse, guidance stays soft. Watch management’s AI roadmap for measurable proof—ad ROI metrics, Performance+ uptake, and any lift in revenue per user—since “we’re investing in AI” only works if advertisers feel it in conversions.
Source: reuters.com

1. U.S. Companies Rush to Europe for “Reverse Yankee” Bonds

The News: U.S. companies are piling into Europe’s bond market in what’s shaping up to be a record year for “reverse Yankee” issuance (Americans borrowing in euros). T-Mobile US said its subsidiary plans to sell about €2.5B in euro-denominated senior notes, and W.P. Carey priced €1B the same day. The appeal is simple: Europe’s rate backdrop is cheaper—ECB policy rates are around the low-2% range versus the Fed still sitting well above that—so treasurers are locking in lower coupons (and, for some firms, a natural currency hedge).

Why It Matters: This is corporate America doing rate arbitrage. If you can borrow cheaper in euros, you lower interest expense, extend maturities, and refinance old debt without paying the full “U.S. rates are still high” toll—freeing up cash for buybacks, capex, or just not sweating the next slowdown. It also tells you something about demand: European credit buyers are hungry enough to fund U.S. names at scale, which helps keep overall financing conditions looser than the Fed might like. And yes, it’s another reminder that monetary policy is global.

What to Watch: Watch how big this gets relative to the prior record year (2007 gets name-checked for a reason), because record volumes usually mean spreads are tight and investors are feeling brave.
Source: bloomberg.com

2. Oil Slides Again as Trump Buys Time on Iran

The News: Oil is headed for a second straight weekly drop after President Trump signaled Iran nuclear talks could run “over the next month,” easing fears of near-term military escalation. Brent settled around $67.75 a barrel Friday, while WTI hovered near $62.89, after both slid almost 3% on Thursday. The other weight on prices: the IEA says 2026 is shaping up for a ~3.7 million bpd supply surplus—record-ish in annual-average terms—while it trimmed demand-growth expectations.

Why It Matters: This is the oil market’s two levers: risk premium and oversupply math and both just moved against prices. When Trump pushes talks out, the “imminent disruption” narrative fades, so traders stop paying extra for fear. And if the IEA is even close on a 2026 glut, producers will have to fight for demand (price cuts, OPEC+ discipline, or both). Still, don’t get too cozy: if Hormuz risk re-heats, oil can reprice fast—about 20% of global petroleum liquids consumption flows through the Strait of Hormuz.

What to Watch: Watch the next Iran headlines for whether “a month” becomes “a framework” (bullish risk premium) or “we’re done talking” (very bullish risk premium).
Source: bloomberg.com

3. U.S. Slaps a 132% Tariff on Russian Palladium

The News: The U.S. Commerce Department made a preliminary affirmative finding that Russian unwrought palladium is being dumped in the U.S., setting a provisional antidumping duty rate of 132.83% that could take effect as soon as next week once published in the Federal Register. The case was triggered by a July 2025 petition from Sibanye-Stillwater and the United Steelworkers, and it still needs final sign-off from Commerce and the ITC, with final determinations expected around June 2026. Sibanye-Stillwater—operator of the only primary U.S. palladium/platinum mines in Montana—praised the move.

Why It Matters: This is tariffs doing two jobs at once: trade enforcement and industrial policy. If the duties stick, Russian palladium gets priced out of the U.S. market, which could help revive activity at Stillwater’s Montana operations—but it also risks higher and more volatile palladium prices for downstream users (think catalytic converters, electronics, and some industrial applications). The global market is already concentrated—Russia is a major supplier—so forcing metal to reroute from the U.S. to other buyers can tighten liquidity and whip prices around. Translation: good for miners and “domestic supply” politics, messy for manufacturers that need predictable input costs.

What to Watch: Watch the Federal Register publication date because that’s when cash deposits/duties can start getting collected at the border. If U.S. buyers pivot harder to South Africa (or bid up recycling supply), it’ll tell you how tight the “non-Russia” market really is.
Source: reuters.com

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