April 18, 2025
Markets
Markets
US equities continued to struggle while most of the rest of the world continued its rebound
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Christian Jensen
Date
April 13, 2025
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2 min
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Check the news below and make sure to visit my latest Market Recap as well.
Macro
- Once again, President Trump and tariffs were the main event of the week. I wrote a quick recap of that whole debacle over here.
- US consumer prices fell a seasonally adjusted 0.1% in March and rose 2.4% from a year ago. The core inflation rate was 2.8% year over year, its lowest since March 2021. Analysts had expected the two to come in at 2.6% and 3% respectively. This data would normally be perceived as highly positive in the continued fight against inflation but aren’t getting nearly as much attention as usual with everyone focusing on Trump’s trade war and what will happen moving forward.
- On Friday, the Producer Price Index showed a similar but even more pronounced trend. Prices declined 0.4% in March while economists had expected them to rise by 0.2%. More than 70% of the decline came from a 0.9& drop in goods prices. However, the annual inflation rate remains well above the 2% target. The headline rate came in at 2.7% while core was at 3.4%.
- The latest survey from the University of Michigan showed consumer sentiment plummeting to 50.8, down from 57.0 in March and well below the 54.6 forecast. Respondents expected the inflation rate to be at 6.7% a year from now, the highest reading since 1981 and up from 5% in March. This is clearly sparked by Trump’s trade policies so it will be interesting to see upcoming surveys now that he has (at least temporarily) reversed course on his aggressive tariff stance.
- India cut interest rates from 6.25% to 6% in an effort to boost its slowing economy. The rate hasn’t been this low since 2022.
- The US held a successful 10-year note auction on Wednesday, easing concerns about demand for US debt.
- China’s consumer price index declined 0.1% year over year in March. Economists had expected the index to stay flat. Producer prices fell for the 29th straight month and were down 2.5% from a year ago. This was the largest contraction since November last year and worse than expected. China is reportedly preparing further stimulus measures.
- The UK economy grew more than expected in February, expanding 0.5% vs the 0.1% forecast.
Other
- Nvidia and Apple’s recent underperformance temporarily put Microsoft back on top as the world’s most valuable company.
- Prada bought Versace from Capri Holdings for $1.38 billion, uniting two of the biggest names in Italian fashion.
- a16z is reportedly in talks to lead a massive investment round in Thinking Machine Labs founded by OpenAI’s former CTO Mira Murati. The round would value the startup at around $10 billion. And that’s despite the fact that the company doesn’t yet have a product, let alone revenue.
- Nvidia and Alphabet are reportedly investing in Safe Superintelligence founded by OpenAI’s former Chief Scientist and co-founder Ilya Sutskever.
Earnings
- JPMorgan Chase reported a solid beat on both the top and bottom lines, although CEO Jamie Dimon warned of significant economic turbulence ahead. Shares rose 4% after the report on Friday and gained 12.3% for the week.
- Morgan Stanley also beat expectations driven by a surge in equity trading revenue. The stock rose a modest 1.4% on Friday but was already up 7% for the week before then.
- Delta Airlines pulled its 2025 forecast amidst massive uncertainty sparked by Trump’s trade policy. The company’s big earnings beat seemed to get lost in the chaos this week.
