Week 17
2026-1720–26 April 2026
7 articles · 4 digests
Sunday, 26 April 2026
[01 articles]
Friday, 24 April 2026
[02 articles]
Powell at a crossroads: will he stay at the Fed after criminal probe referral?
- —The U.S. Justice Department referred the Fed headquarters renovation probe to the central bank's inspector general, effectively stepping back — Powell had previously vowed to stay until the criminal investigation was resolved.
- —Powell now faces a binary choice: depart on May 15 when his chair term expires, or remain as a Board of Governors member through January 2028 to safeguard institutional independence.
ECB signs agreements with European standard setters to facilitate digital euro payments
- —The ECB has signed agreements with three European standardisation bodies (ECPC, nexo standards, Berlin Group) to reuse open technical standards for processing digital euro online payments.
- —Standards cover NFC contactless payments (CPACE), merchant-to-PSP back-end connectivity (nexo), and alias-based/mobile payments including POS integration (Berlin Group).
Thursday, 23 April 2026
[01 articles]Today's dominant theme is the geopolitical premium from the closed Strait of Hormuz, pushing Brent above $100/barrel and feeding through into inflation expectations, earnings season dynamics, and monetary policy on both sides of the Atlantic. CNB rhetoric has shifted toward a possible rate hike, while uncertainty surrounding Warsh's Fed chair nomination adds volatility to global fixed-income markets.
Wednesday, 22 April 2026
[03 articles]Today's agenda is dominated by the Strait of Hormuz geopolitical escalation — nearly two months of closure has produced the largest energy supply shock in modern history, with WTI crude above $89 and the IMF warning of an inevitable global growth slowdown, while stagflation risk weighs on both fixed-income and equity allocations across all sectors. Simultaneously, the politicisation of the Fed chair nomination and uncertainty around central bank independence are extending volatility across U.S. and global markets.
Warsh wants to overhaul Fed's inflation measurement — Bank of America warns of unintended consequences
- —Trump's Fed chair nominee Kevin Warsh advocates replacing core PCE with a trimmed-mean inflation gauge that strips out extreme price readings from both tails of the distribution.
- —Bank of America estimates the trimmed method would have shown inflation at 2.3% (mean) to 2.8% (median) as of February, versus 3% for core PCE — giving Warsh room to argue for easier policy.
Markets shrug at Iran ceasefire extension — Hormuz blockade persists, oil above $90
- —Trump extended the Iran ceasefire, reducing immediate risk of resumed strikes — markets reacted with indifference as global equities reclaimed pre-war levels.
- —Brent crude trades around $99.81/barrel, WTI around $90.86; the Strait of Hormuz blockade remains in place, continuing to constrain global oil supply.
Elderson (ECB): Climate risks are part of banking supervision, not politics — interview on ESG, Basel IV and shadow banking
- —ECB Executive Board member Elderson defends integrating climate risks into banking supervision as a legal obligation, not a political choice — climate factors directly affect price stability (2022 Rhine drought added 0.7 pp to food inflation).
- —Of the 112 banks directly supervised by the ECB, all but two had adequately mapped climate and nature risks by end-2024 — a major improvement from 2019, when only 25% had begun to address this seriously.
Tuesday, 21 April 2026
[00 articles]The dominant theme today is the escalating US-Iran conflict and Strait of Hormuz blockade, which has triggered the largest energy supply disruption in modern history and pushed crude above $89/bbl — a stagflationary scenario is becoming a real risk across asset classes. Simultaneously, markets are tracking the potentially largest IPO in history (SpaceX, $2T valuation), a generational Apple leadership transition, and a major DeFi exploit draining ~$196M from Aave V3.
Monday, 20 April 2026
[00 articles]The dominant theme today is the escalating US–Iran conflict and the Strait of Hormuz blockade, which has triggered the largest energy supply disruption in modern history — crude above $89/bbl, TTF gas at €43/MWh, and the IMF warning of a global stagflationary scenario. Across sectors from real estate to equities and crypto, one rule applies: the geopolitical risk premium has become a structural, not transitory, factor.