![](\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2270634312.jpg?w=2048\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Oil was at $101 per barrel this morning. S&P 500 futures were down 0.53% this morning before the open in New York. The index closed down 0.11% on Friday. China\u2019s CSI 300 was up 0.21% but markets in Europe and the rest of Asia fell: Japan\u2019s Nikkei 225 was down 0.74%. The U.K.\u2019s FTSE 100 was down 0.43% in early trading. Europe\u2019s Stoxx 600 was down 0.7% before lunch.<\/p>\n
Despite inflation, the Fed may yet cut interest rates<\/p>\n
Friday\u2019s inflation number for March\u2014up nearly an entire percentage point to 3.3%, boosted by oil prices increased by the war\u2014has Wall Street debating whether the Fed will deliver any more interest rate cuts this year. Surprisingly, a lot of analysts expect Chairman Jerome Powell to \u201clook through\u201d this burst in inflation and cut rates regardless later in the year. Here\u2019s a sampling of analysts\u2019 opinions:<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still think interest rate cuts are more likely than hikes, especially given the Fed\u2019s dual mandate (price stability AND maximum employment).\u201d\u2014ING\u2019s James Knightley.
\n\u201cWe still expect cuts this year given the Fed’s bias to look through supply-driven inflation, little signs of wage pressures, and political pressure. While risks are tilted towards no cuts, by September, Warsh should be in and have enough evidence of inflation cooling to rally support for a couple of cuts.\u201d\u2014Bank of America\u2019s Claudio Irigoyen and Antonio Gabriel.
\n\u201cAs long as long-run inflation expectations remain well anchored, we still think the Fed will step in later this year and cut interest rates twice to shore up the labor market in the face of this energy supply shock.\u201d\u2014Bernard Yaros at Oxford Economics.
\n\u201cWe expect core CPI inflation to drop to about 2\u00bc% by the end of this year, from 2.6% in March, enabling the FOMC to ease policy again to support the teetering labor market.\u201d\u2014Sam Tombs at Pantheon Macroeconomics.
\n\u201cWith the conflict in the Middle East still unresolved, uncertainty regarding future inflation should keep the Federal Reserve in a wait-and-see mode.\u201d\u2014Vinny Amaru of J.P. Morgan Wealth Management.
\n\u201cSince the Hormuz chokepoint was closed for an extended period, we should expect another one or two hot inflation prints\u2026The Fed clearly is on hold for the next several meetings.\u201d\u2014Jeffrey Roach at LPL Financial.
\n\u201cFrom a policy standpoint, the Fed is expected to look through this one\u2011time energy shock. The bar for a rate hike remains high and no increase is expected in the near term.\u201d\u2014Adam Schickling at Vanguard.<\/p>\n
The price of oil today via TradingEconomics.com:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
ONE BIG THINGEXCLUSIVE: Citgo CEO imprisoned by Maduro still hopes democracy will return to Venezuela<\/p>\n
Watching Nicol\u00e1s Maduro transported in handcuffs by U.S. officials in January, Jos\u00e9 Pereira felt a sense of retribution and a release of eight years of pent-up anger: \u201cThat is exactly what this guy did to us,\u201d Pereira said of the former Venezuelan leader. \u201cFor me, it was like, \u2018Wow, now you\u2019re suffering. Now, this is karma.\u2019 I was very glad. It\u2019s not vengeance; it\u2019s justice.\u201d Back in 2017, Pereira was the interim CEO of Citgo Petroleum in Houston. By the end of that year he was in handcuffs in Caracas in a military prison, tried and convicted in a kangaroo court for corruption and treason as one of the \u201cCitgo Six,\u201d accused of signing an agreement that disfavored the Venezuelan government. Fortune\u2019s Jordan Blum has the story.<\/p>\n
IRANU.S. Navy to begin patrol of Hormuz at 10 a.m. today<\/p>\n
Peace talks between the U.S. and Iran broke down over the weekend and President Trump said the U.S. will start a blockade of all ships \u201cEntering or Exiting Iranian Ports\u201d in the Strait of Hormuz starting today at 10 a.m. EST. Vessels bound for non-Iranian ports will not be blocked, Centcom\u2019s notice said.<\/p>\n
If it succeeds, cutting off Iran\u2019s oil exports might incentivize China, which buys most of Iran\u2019s oil, to urge Tehran to reopen the strait, according to Fortune\u2019s Jason Ma. It would also deprive the regime of hard currency needed to prop up its war machine.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny Iranian who fires at us, or at peaceful vessels, will be BLOWN TO HELL!\u201d Trump said on social media.<\/p>\n
The blockade is a new tactic for U.S. forces and, in some ways, a relatively muted response to the failure of the talks. Iran\u2019s uranium supplies remain intact and the regime declined to give up its nuclear program, according to the Wall Street Journal. Forcing Iran to abandon its nuclear weapon ambitions was a key goal for Trump. A resumption of bombing\u2014including targeting civilian infrastructure\u2014was an option the White House considered and rejected, for now.<\/p>\n
Pipe down, pope!<\/p>\n
Trump blasted Pope Leo last night: \u201cPope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,\u201d he said, in a lengthy tirade on Truth Social. The slam is an apparent response to the leader of the Catholic Church\u2019s suggestion that Trump should seek an off-ramp from the war. The president also posted a picture of himself dressed as Jesus Christ.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The attack came after a report that the White House sent a delegation to Vatican officials to ask that the pope tone down his criticism of Trump. That meeting ended disastrously, according to reports, when one U.S. official went off-script and suggested that the U.S. could set up an alternative papacy if Leo didn\u2019t fall into line.<\/p>\n
MORE FROM FORTUNE<\/p>\n
This TikTok sensation sold her startup for $2 billion. Now Pepsi is letting \u2018Poppi be Poppi\u2019 – Eva Roytburg<\/p>\n
Blazing hot IPOs, an AI agent craze, and a new word for \u2018token\u2019: Here\u2019s what\u2019s happening in the world of Chinese AI – Nicholas Gordon<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s crumbling economy is the regime\u2019s greatest weakness with prices up 40% since the war began while authorities worry about making payroll – Jason Ma<\/p>\n
Intuit was an AI pioneer. Why its stock became a SaaSpocalypse casualty – Geoff Colvin<\/p>\n
CHART OF THE DAYAirline ticket prices track Google search volume for \u201cflights\u201d<\/p>\n
Pantheon Macroeconomics\u2019 Samuel Tombs notes that when we all search for \u201cflights,\u201d ticket prices start going up. \u201cThe jump in energy prices [in March\u2019s inflation data] also drove the 2.7% increase in airline fares, which boosted [core inflation] by 0.03 percentage points,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
NUMBER OF THE DAY\u221211.0%<\/p>\n
The return on investment achieved by Anthropic\u2019s Claude Opus 4.6 when it was given historic stats and asked to place bets on matches in the 2023-24 English Premier League season, in a study by General Reasoning. (The AI was blocked from knowing the real results.) Claude, who turned $100,000 into $89,035 over the course of the season, performed the best of eight AI models tested. All the others lost money\u2014and two of them went completely bankrupt.\u00a0<\/p>\n
THE FRONT PAGES TODAY<\/p>\n
Hungary\u2019s Orb\u00e1n concedes defeat as opposition secures landslide win – FT<\/p>\n
Trump threatens 50% tariffs on China as report suggests plans for arms shipment to Iran – CNBC<\/p>\n
Eric Swalwell suspends campaign for California governor – Axios<\/p>\n
AI Is Using So Much Energy That Computing Firepower Is Running Out – WSJ<\/p>\n
ONE MORE THINGA huge number of Americans have no retirement plan<\/p>\n
Nearly half of working-age Americans don\u2019t have a retirement account, according to this data from Apollo Global Management chief economist Torsten Sl\u00f8k. It\u2019s not a surprise that younger workers and poorer workers don\u2019t have savings. But the fact that 20% of the highest earners have done zero prep for retirement is a shocker.\u00a0<\/p>\n
#U.S #Navy #begins #blockade #Strait #Hormuz #Trump #asks #Pope #shut<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Oil was at $101 per barrel this morning. S&P 500 futures were down 0.53% this…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[245],"tags":[8239,4747,4906,1003,504,376,166,2717,1087,303,1017,2612,503,721,722],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3740"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3740\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}