Hello and welcome to Macro Notes, your go-to source for the latest macroeconomic trends, market-moving news, and key indicators to watch. We cut through the noise to bring you actionable insights in just a few minutes.

Crypto Edge (Sponsored)

Outperform Bitcoin—Without Owning It

Bitcoin’s ups and downs have made and lost fortunes. But what if there was a way to outperform BTC—without ever buying it?

Hedge fund titan Larry Benedict has revealed a new approach called "Bitcoin Skimming," a strategy that has outpaced Bitcoin’s returns by as much as 22-to-1.

With the SEC’s latest decision set to shake up crypto markets, now is the perfect time to discover how this works.

Click here to see the full details before this opportunity disappears.

🌍 The Big Picture

Oil & Gas

Crude Slides on OPEC+ Move, Raising Red Flags for U.S. Drillers

OPEC+ is adding more oil to an already softening market, and the U.S. economy may feel it in more ways than one. The group's decision to hike production by another 411,000 barrels per day in June—on top of the same increase in May—has sent crude prices tumbling. U.S. oil futures are now hovering around $56 per barrel, down about 20% year to date.

This move lands just as recession fears grow louder.  With demand outlooks deteriorating and supply expanding aggressively, price pressure is building. April already saw the biggest monthly oil price drop since 2021.

The response is rippling across the U.S. energy sector. Oilfield service providers like Baker Hughes and SLB expect a slowdown in exploration investment. Even major producers like Chevron and Exxon reported weaker Q1 earnings tied to lower crude prices.

The bigger issue: there's too much oil and not enough buyers. Prices are dropping, and that's making companies cut back on drilling, hiring, and spending.

And if this slide continues, the fallout won't stay in the oil patch. Lower energy prices can help tame inflation, but they also signal hesitation—a cooling engine rather than an efficient one.

Global Media

New Film Tariff Plan Raises Global Tensions in the Entertainment Industry

The U.S. government has announced plans to introduce a 100% tariff on movies produced outside the country. The move is meant to push studios and filmmakers to return to domestic production and protect jobs in the American film industry.

Major movie projects have been filmed overseas in places that offer generous tax breaks and lower production costs for years. This new policy is designed to counter that trend and make local production more attractive or less expensive than importing.

This is the latest in a broader wave of trade actions to encourage U.S.-based production across multiple industries. The film and television sector is a major economic driver, supporting over 2 million jobs and generating a trade surplus. However, roughly half of high-budget content is now made outside the country.

The new tariff could shake up global production strategies and strain trade ties with countries that host major U.S.-funded film projects. Governments that have built industries around attracting American production may now push back with their restrictions or pull incentives.

As studios reassess where to film, tensions will likely grow—not just in entertainment but in broader trade relationships tied to digital exports and cultural exchange.

Uranium Demand (Sponsored)

On Behalf of Azincourt Energy Corp

Why Uranium’s Next Cycle Could Be Bigger Than 2007

With AI pushing power demand through the roof, nuclear is the only option.

Uranium demand is set to double. One junior may benefit most.

Tap here to unlock the name.

*Examples that we provide of share price increases pertaining to a particular Issuer from one referenced date to another represent an arbitrarily chosen time period and are no indication whatsoever of future stock prices for that Issuer and are of no predictive value. Our stock profiles are intended to highlight certain companies for YOUR further investigation; they are NOT stock recommendations or constitute an offer or sale of the referenced securities.

Critical Minerals

China’s New Rare Earth Export Controls Expose U.S. Supply Chain Risks

China has imposed new export controls on rare earth materials and magnets, restricting shipments to the U.S. and other countries in response to ongoing trade tensions. While the restrictions are not framed as a ban, deliveries have largely stopped, creating fresh pressure on industries that rely on these critical inputs.

The timing is significant. Rare earths are essential for manufacturing electric vehicles, wind turbines, missile guidance systems, and advanced electronics. Without stable access, the U.S. clean energy and defense sectors face production delays and cost increases.

Over the past three decades, China has built a dominant capacity in mining, refining, and magnet production, which is supported by state-backed research and infrastructure. Meanwhile, environmental rules and shifting industrial priorities have led to underinvestment in rare earth processing in the U.S. and Europe.

With China now tightening controls again, the risks of overreliance are becoming more immediate. The current disruption highlights how little redundancy exists in the global supply chain and how difficult it will be to scale domestic alternatives quickly.

For U.S. industries, the challenge is no longer theoretical. Critical materials that power modern manufacturing are no longer guaranteed, and governments may now be forced to respond.

📊 Metrics to Watch

• Import Action: The Port of Los Angeles, which processes 40% of the nation’s total China imports, reports that shipments dropped more than 10% over the past month (with further slowdowns expected).   

• Income Funds: Actively-managed income ETFs are having their moment in the sun as investors seek professionally-managed safe havens; the BlackRock Strategic Income Opportunities Fund (MUTF: BSIIX) returned more than 8% over the past year. 

• China’s Retail Woes: China’s consumer price index slipped into negative territory after a two-month drop, indicating imminent deflation from falling consumer demand.

• …Not to Mention the Job Market: Economists expect China’s unemployment rate to average 5.7% this year, 200 basis points above the nation’s target, signaling stormy economic waters ahead.

🚀 Market Movers

 🇨🇳 China Risks Deflation: In another indicator that Trump’s tariffs are working exactly as planned, China’s product surge toward domestic markets (diverted from international shipping lanes due to prohibitive trade taxation) pushes prices downward across industries. Existing weak demand and excess capacity risk devaluing Chinese currencies massively, not to mention ripple effects across their economies. 

In other words, regional funds like the iShares MSCI China ETF (NASDAQ: MCHI) may not be the best bet in an increasingly fragmented market despite their 2025 outperformance thus far (+16% since January).

🏡 Private Housing Listings: Private housing brokerages like Compass are facing antitrust allegations due to their exclusivity. Homes listed on these platforms are only accessible to agents with access, meaning they aren’t visible to 99%+ of prospective homebuyers. 

Concerns about reserving top properties for elite buyers (cutting out the American middle class and keeping pricing artificially elevated) could trigger sweeping legislative housing reform.

📈 Quality, Stability, and Value: Keeping a close eye on large stock and fund inflows is a good way to gauge institutional investor sentiment indirectly. And, throughout the past few weeks, inflows point to renewed cycling back toward American stocks, but with a twist.

Instead of the high-flying tech and growth sectors, these buyers focused on healthcare and industrial stocks for their stability and prioritized companies with less leverage and higher operational efficiency metrics.

🏦 Eyes on the Fed: The Fed’s Open Market Committee meets this week, and, even with no rate cut in sight, expect markets to hold their breath until Jerome Powell releases a statement and meeting minutes on Wednesday at 2:30 ET. Stocks tend to trade flat and on low volume in the days leading up to major Fed announcement expectations, so get your hedges in now if you expect drastic moves in either direction.

Radical Vision (Sponsored)

Elon’s Boldest Move Yet

Every investor in America is trying to figure out what Musk will do in Washington, D.C., in the coming weeks.

One Boston-based think tank – who has studied Elon’s work for decades – is stepping forward to share what they’ve found.

They believe his TRUE plan is far more radical than anyone realizes. It could change the way you live, work, get paid, and collect Social Security…

...AND could make more people rich than all of Elon's previous ventures – PUT TOGETHER.

Full story here.

⚡ Market Impacts

Equities: A recent Barron’s “Big Money” poll points to massive bearishness within U.S. equity markets on the part of institutional investment managers. Bullishness rankings are at an all-time low for the spring equities season, with about one-quarter of respondents saying they expect positive momentum in the coming months, compared to 50% expressing a positive outlook immediately before Trump’s election.

Bonds: Muni bonds are increasingly back on the menu for sophisticated investor classes paying a ton in taxes. Ten-year maturity munis now yield about 80% compared to Treasuries, meaning anyone paying 20% or more for their income tax bill may want to consider cycling out of money market funds and U.S. sovereign debt into the regional fixed-income assets.     

Currencies: The Taiwanese dollar exploded to a two-year high this week, which points to potential monetary engineering across Asian markets designed to tweak currencies in a way that accommodates U.S. trade policy. In other words, increased foreign currency values help blunt the impact of trade taxation, meaning countries seem to be planning to accept Trump’s tariffs as the status quo.

Commodities: Expectations of rising summer demand across energy sectors led to another OPEC+ production spike, with the oil cartel planning to raise June’s output by more than 400,000 barrels daily. That marks the second consecutive monthly increase, even as oil markets remain relatively depressed day-to-day, creating an opportunity to buy back into energy before demand spikes for the summer. 

🗓️ Key Indicators to Watch

• 📅 Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC)  – May  6-7: Rate cuts aren’t likely, but this month’s meeting could have major market impacts regardless.  

• 📅 FOMC Press Conference – May 7th at 2:30 ET: Many expect Powell to push back on Trump’s rate cut demands during his post-FOMC presser. 

• 📅 Consumer Credit (March) – May 7th: A slide toward increased credit utilization spells trouble for household debt management.

🧩 Everything Else

• We briefly looked at Barron’s Big Money poll this week regarding equity expectations, but the rest of the survey’s results are equally startling.

• I Bonds aren’t the hot commodity they once were, but an increasing fixed rate makes them a good bet for savers betting against inflation falling.

• Powell said he wouldn’t even consider rate cuts until tariff inflation effects were better understood, signaling a theme for Wednesday's FOMC press conference. 

• Billionaire Bill Ackman seems to be panicking as he demands that Trump pause China tariffs for 180 days.

• U.S. service provider growth expanded in April, even as industrial goods production slumped.