Good afternoon,
Jerome Powell's last week as Fed Chair began with three new records on the major indexes and a fresh spike in crude. The contrast is the story. Tuesday's CPI print decides whether Kevin Warsh walks into a Fed that can stand pat, or one already losing ground to the Iran shock. For retirement portfolios, that single data point matters more than the record close.
The Pulse
Source: Koyfin
Markets
Chips again did the lifting. The PHLX Semiconductor Index is up roughly 38% in a month, with Micron, Intel, Apple, and Alphabet all opening at fresh highs.
Brent crude settled near $104.21 as Trump called the Iran ceasefire "on massive life support".
COMEX copper closed at a record $6.4605 a pound, now up more than 13% year to date on AI build-out and Hormuz-tied refining shortages.
Bond traders are bracing for the April CPI print, with consensus near 3.7% headline and 2.7% core.
Equities are pricing the AI capex story as a structural offset to higher oil. Bonds are pricing sticky inflation and a Fed on hold. Both can be true for a while. They cannot both be true forever.
Earnings
Mosaic was the day's most telling report. The fertilizer maker posted Q1 adjusted earnings of $0.05 a share, well below the $0.24 consensus, and withdrew its 2026 phosphate output guidance. Sulfur costs, snarled by the Hormuz disruption, forced production cuts at Bartow and Louisiana to roughly half capacity. Capex was trimmed to $1.25 billion.
Constellation Energy beat with adjusted Q1 EPS of $2.74 on $11.12 billion in revenue, helped by the Calpine integration, and reaffirmed full-year guidance of $11 to $12.
Monday.com rose about 19% intraday after Q1 revenue grew 24% to $351.3 million and full-year guidance was raised.
Source: Nasdaq
This week's lineup:
Today: JD.com
Wednesday: Cisco, Alibaba
Thursday: Brookfield, Klarna, Figma
Gold & Silver Moves
Gold finished near $4,747 an ounce, up about 0.5%. The metal has been choppy. It pulled back when peace talks looked plausible last week, then steadied as Trump rejected Tehran's offer. Gold sits more than 10% below its February peak, pressured by elevated real yields and a stronger dollar through the war. Central-bank demand continues at roughly 800 to 1,000 tonnes annually, which limits how far the price can fall. With CPI looming, gold is waiting for the print to decide whether it pushes toward $5,000 or revisits $4,500.
Silver closed near $85.85, up 6.3%, one of its sharpest sessions of the year. The trigger was Peru's energy emergency decree. Peru supplies about 13.6% of global mine output. Reuters reports the global shortfall widening to 46.3 million ounces in 2026 from 40.3 million in 2025. Industrial demand from solar, AI data-center wiring, and electric vehicles continues to outrun supply.
Source: JM Bullion
The Gold / Silver ratio sits near 55 (gold $4,747 divided by silver $85.85). That is the tightest reading in roughly two years, well below the long-run average of about 70 and far below the 100-plus levels seen during 2024 risk-off episodes. A falling ratio means silver is outperforming gold.
Historically, a sub-60 ratio has coincided with three conditions: rising inflation expectations, accelerating industrial demand, and late-cycle momentum in precious metals. All three are arguably in place today. The reading suggests investors are treating silver less as gold's smaller cousin and more as a critical industrial metal with monetary side benefits. It also points to a risk-on tone within the precious-metals complex itself, even as broader markets digest the war.
When the ratio compresses like this, both metals can still appreciate, but silver tends to lead. For retirement portfolios, the message is that precious metals continue to offer purchasing-power protection, with silver carrying both the industrial tailwind and the higher volatility that comes with it.
The Deal Room
M&A / Investments
Prosus agreed to sell a 5% stake in Delivery Hero to Hong Kong's Aspex for €335 million ($395 million) at a 22% premium to the 30-day VWAP, fulfilling EU conditions from the Just Eat Takeaway deal.
Dream Finders Homes made an unsolicited $704 million all-cash offer for Beazer Homes at $25.75 a share, a 40% premium; Beazer rose 32.7%.
Roche agreed to acquire AI-pathology firm PathAI for up to $1.1 billion, with $750 million upfront.
IPO / Listings
Cerebras upsized its IPO to 30 million shares at $150 to $160, targeting up to $4.8 billion at a $34.4 billion valuation. Pricing is set for Wednesday.
Funds / Secondaries
The University of Michigan's endowment is sitting on a roughly 100x gain on its $20 million bet in OpenAI, a reminder that a single venture position can quietly reshape an institutional portfolio.
Middle-market construction lender S3 Capital closed its third fund at $1.3 billion, adding fresh dry powder to a private-credit corner that has held up better than the broader retail side of the asset class.
Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. took a stake in Dominari Holdings' new unit, American Ventures, a $1 billion vehicle aimed at sectors aligned with the Trump administration's priorities.
Retirement Lens
It is a strange tape to read through a retirement lens. Wall Street is at records while oil sits near $100, mortgage rates hover close to 6.4%, and silver just had its sharpest session of the year. Each of those numbers means something different for someone living off a portfolio rather than building one. Friday's wage data was a relief on the growth side, but it likely freezes the Fed for the rest of the year. Tuesday's CPI print will decide whether bonds are offering real yield or only nominal comfort.
The practical posture remains familiar enough. Hold quality, keep inflation hedges in whatever form suits the plan, and consider that modest precious-metals exposure looks more justified now that the gold/silver ratio signals broad participation rather than a narrow safe-haven bid. Stay liquid enough to ride out a CPI surprise without being forced to sell into it. Remember that records at the index level often hide narrow leadership underneath, which matters more for retirement portfolios than for traders.
Headline Hunt
April nonfarm payrolls rose 115,000, well above the 55,000 to 62,000 consensus; unemployment held at 4.3%.
Apple and Intel reached a preliminary agreement for Intel to make some Apple chips, sending INTC up about 14% Friday.
Alphabet disclosed plans for its first yen bond, with Amazon mandating banks for a debut Swiss franc deal, both to fund AI capex.
April existing-home sales rose only 0.2% to a 4.02 million annual pace, below consensus, as 30-year mortgage rates ran above 6.37%.
Michael Burry told subscribers to cut tech exposure, comparing the tape to the 1999 to 2000 peak.
The Financial Stability Board opened a review of retail exposure to the $1.8 trillion private credit market.
Jerome Powell's term as Fed Chair ends May 15; Kevin Warsh's full confirmation vote remains pending.
President Trump heads to Beijing this week to meet Xi Jinping; Iran, Taiwan, AI guardrails, and critical minerals are on the agenda.