MCO Morning Wrap
Hot April CPI at 3.8% blew up the soft-landing narrative, Treasury yields hit a 1-year high, Brent ripped to $107.77, and European stocks opened deep in the red.

Oil kept ripping on top of that. Brent settled at $107.77, up 3.4%. WTI at $102.18, up 4.2%. Saudi Aramco's CEO said the market is losing roughly 100 million barrels a week with Hormuz still shut. Trump called Tehran's counterproposal 'garbage.' The supply shock is now propagating into prices that don't reset quickly.
European markets opened weak. DAX off about 0.4%, Stoxx 600 down 1.2%, all sectors red. Tightening expectations and oil pass-through hitting both ends at once. Not great.
Stateside, the S&P dropped from a fresh record on Tuesday as chips got hit. Futures sit barely above the flatline this morning at 7,436. Dow held up better than Nasdaq overnight, classic rotation when rates back up.
Asia traded mixed. Nikkei closed 62,742.57, futures point a touch lower. Hang Seng 26,347.91, futures down to 26,264. The dollar firmed across the board, weighing on risk.
Crypto leaning weaker. BTC sits near $80,389 after sliding through $80K briefly, ETH at $2,259. Both got hit when yields ripped. Gold did the same dance, $4,678 spot after a 1.2% Tuesday drop. Even gold can't fight a rates-up-dollar-up combo cleanly.
Today's calendar: PPI this morning, jobless claims Thursday, Powell's last full days at the Fed before the Warsh handoff Friday. Senate CLARITY Act vote tomorrow.
Hot CPI did exactly what bears were waiting for. The Fed transition just got harder by an order of magnitude.
That's the setup. Let's see how it plays out.
Sources
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