Good morning. US equities started the week in solid fashion yesterday. The S&P 500 and equal-weight rose 1% and the Russell 2000 outperformed, up 1.5%. The initial negative takeaways from the weekend’s US-Iran negotiations gave way to more optimistic views. However, crude still rose, though it was off its highs. US futures are following-through this morning with modest gains on more optimism from the latest headlines. The US and Iran remain in active discussion, with a potential second round of talks being discussed. JD Vance said “we made a lot of progress” and there were exchanges of enrichment moratorium timelines according to several media outlets.

Broadly speaking Financial earnings are solid with some puts and takes within the reports. Credit quality was a big question mark coming into the quarter and thus far we don’t see any big red flags. March PPI leads the macro data today and it came in surprisingly cool, both headline and core. Final Demand Goods jumped 1.6% but most of that was the 8.5% jump in energy, which was expected. Ex-energy and food, final demand increased 0.2%. Meanwhile Services was unchanged in the month, falling from +0.3% in February. Despite the lack of a scary inflation headline, yields didn’t move much overall, nor did equity futures.

Energy commodities are trading lower. The IEA took an axe to its 2026 its global oil demand and now expects it to contract by 80K bpd. That diverges from OPEC’s monthly report, which kept world oil demand unchanged from last month. Precious metals are trading higher, led by silver’s 3% gain. Ag is also higher. Crypto continues to add to its recent strength as Bitcoin pulls away from its 50d ma, heading towards its 100d ~$79k.