Morning Brew April 20 2026

Good morning

Markets are stuck between hope and despair: Friday ended strongly on news that the Strait of Hormuz was open, then we had a denial. Over the weekend, there were reports of peace talks. The US seized an Iranian ship breaking their blockade, and Iran is accusing the US of piracy. Overall, the situation is rather unclear.

US indexes rose significantly, with the Dow up 1.79%, S&P 500 up 1.20%, and Nasdaq up 1.52% for the week. For the week, the S&P 500 gained 4.53%, the Nasdaq rose 6.84%, and the Dow climbed 3.2%. The Nasdaq posted 13 consecutive daily gains, the longest winning streak since January 1992.

Netflix ended the day nearly 10% lower and Alcoa shed nearly 7% on weak numbers, but all of the Magnificent 7 closed the day in the green.

The SMI closed up nearly 2%, with Cie Financière Richemont at nearly 5% as the strongest gainer, followed by Sika, Partners Group, Geberit, and ABB, all up more than 3%. In Frankfurt, the DAX rose 2.25% to 24,698.94 points. The CAC 40 gained 1.97%, to 8,425.13 points. Lufthansa rose 6%, Air France-KLM gained 7.51%, and EasyJet closed up 6.9%.

This morning we are seeing a reversal of Friday's move, but not fully: Oil is up more than 3% at $88.80 in the US and $95.30 in the UK. Indexes are down between 0.5% and 1%. The USD gains to 98.01 again, with EURUSD at 1.1780, Cable at 1.35, and USDJPY at 158.90. Gold and silver are lower at 4,788 and 79.75, respectively. Platinum is at 2,095.

While the day-to-day situation is difficult to assess and often reliant on incorrect or unclear news, we are heading into another week where we are lacking approximately 8 million barrels of oil, which will become more and more of an issue the longer the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. Europe is heading into a jet fuel shortage soon.

We are heading into week 8 of the war and should expect the effects of dwindling reserves in everything passing through the strait—not immediately and globally, but there will be pockets of shortages.

Iran is holding the world's economy in a chokehold and is very aware of it. This makes negotiations rather complicated.

Fed’s Waller said policymakers understand inflation risks and may hold rates if war-driven inflation coincides with weaker jobs. Fed’s Daly said spending remains solid, but the outlook hinges on how long oil prices and the conflict persist.

The coming week will be driven by any progress in Iran, earnings, with Tesla in the spotlight as the first of the Magnificent 7 reporting this season. CME, Nokia, Intel, and IBM are other widely held stocks reporting this week. The outlook of American Express on Friday and P&G on Friday will be very insightful.

In terms of data releases, we are expecting US retail sales and PMI. For Europe the German ZEW and IFO will give insight into the sentiment, and we are expecting the UK Employment data, Inflation and Retail sales.

Especially for Germany it is important to bear in mind that the local sentiment is not the main driver of stock prices – a poor outlook in the ZEW and IFO will drive politics more than the Dax. Government spending at more than 50% and expected to remain there until 2031 at least. Today, Unicredit will present it`s vision for Commerzbank of which it holds 30%.

Donald Trump posted a video of Frank Sinatra performing “My Way” raising the question if the focus should be on the refrain of doing it my way or the Opening lines: the and now the end is here and so I face the final curtain?

Trade carefully, the market will remain headline driven – define your strategy well in advance…

Monday, April 20, 2026

Data: China Interest Rate, Canada CPI

Tuesday, April 21, 2026

Data: UK labor data, U.S. Retail Sales , Germany ZEW Economic Sentiment

Earnings: United Health, GE Aerospace, RTX, 3M, Halliburton, United, Interactive Brokers.

Wednesday, April 22, 2026

Data: U.K. CPI, EU Consumer Confidence

Earnings: Boeing, CME, Tesla, IBM, Texas Instruments

Thursday, April 23, 2026

Data: Global PMI, U.S. Initial Jobless Claims

Earnings: Nokia, Blackstone, Dow, American Airlines, American Express, Intel, Newmont

Friday, April 24, 2026

Data: U.K. Retail Sales, Japan CPI, Germany Ifo Business Climate, U.S. University of Michigan

Earnings: P&G

Monday, April 27, 2026

Data: Japan Leading Index