April 6, 2026

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”

John 3:16

Hoping all had a blessed and Happy Easter, as it was Holy Week and Spring break, we did have a shortened trading week, here are the numbers. The S&P finished up1.63%, The Dow Jones Industrial Average was stronger up 3.0% and the Nasdaq was the domestic winner up 4.4%. International fared better with the FTSE 100 up 4.7% and the MSCI-EAFE gaining 4.31%. The 2-Year Treasury paid 3.79% and the 10-Year yield was 4.31%.

So, what happened, all three major indexes marked a weekly gain for the first time in six weeks. The big three didn’t just snap five-week losing streak, they posted their best weekly gains since the week of Thanksgiving. Last Thursday was actually the one-year anniversary of President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcement that roiled markets. Just like April of last year, the market was reacting to comments from the President that morning and the market rallied heading into the President’s Wednesday evening speech. It seems Wall Street sought to get ahead of a potential peace rally. The President gave reassurances that the war, and the spike in oil prices, would be over soon. It is clear that the Administration is all in on expecting good news throughout the economy by the summer and into the Mid-Term elections. The opposition is jumping on any short-term bad news to frame a different narrative for the election. As always, look at the numbers not the rhetoric, both ways.

The big surprise was very good news on the employment front. The U.S. added a greater-than-expected 178,000 jobs in March and the unemployment rate fell a tick to 4.3% signs that the labor market is holding firm even as the economy undergoes another spasm of uncertainty tied to the Iran war. The increase in employment March, the biggest in 15 months, was padded by the return of 31,000 striking nurses. Better weather last month may have also helped.

The effect may be that the seemingly strong jobs report is likely to keep the Federal Reserve on the sidelines. The central bank stopped cutting interest rates in December, and its next move is unclear. However, the unemployment rate is the best gauge of the labor market’s health, given slow or no population growth. And what it shows is that the economy is doing all right, for now. The economy is unlikely to improve much, however, until the conflict with Iran is resolved and oil prices drop. Last Wednesday’s optimism over an end to the Iran conflict evaporated after President Trump’s primetime address promised weeks of continued escalation. The session opened sharply lower as crude surged near $112 per barrel, but equities clawed back most of the deficit after reports that Iran and Oman are drafting a protocol to monitor Strait of Hormuz traffic. The recovery was defensive in character: energy, utilities, and real estate led, while consumer discretionary lagged, positioning that reflects higher-for-longer oil rather than a quick resolution.

The crude spike reintroduced an inflation problem the Fed cannot solve with monetary tools. With energy costs feeding into input prices and consumer spending, rate relief remains off the table until the geopolitical picture clarifies, leaving markets trapped between war premium and recession risk. However, as real wages are rising and bigger tax returns are expected this year it should provide some relief to the short-term pain. At least the Administration is counting on it.

As next week we will be sending our quarterly reports to our clients and the volatility, due to world events, probably caused some heartburn, the good news is we fared very well overall and the positions held up well in the rollercoaster ride of the past month.

So, with the successful liftoff of the Artemis II moon launch on April 1 last week, we hope it becomes a metaphor for an improving market assuming the administrations bets on Iran, tax cuts, and addressing affordability issues turns out to be correct.

Mike