Brief Morning Note

I'm on the road this morning, so I asked our AI engine to draft a succinct macro note.

But first, with regard to yesterday’s market action, while the rally was impressive, and relatively broad-based, positioning and sentiment was notably bearish going in… Thus, that upside move was no doubt exaggerated via short covering, options dealer positioning, etc… Not to discount the message of the market, just putting the extent of the move into its proper context… The second paragraph below is key to the near term set up.

Here you go:

Client Brief | Macro Developments — April 1, 2026

Global manufacturing data out of Europe this morning delivered a meaningful upside surprise, with Germany's PMI printing at 52.2 against a 51.7 forecast and Switzerland beating by over six points — both readings consistent with an economy absorbing the energy shock better than consensus feared. The eurozone's unemployment rate held near historic lows at 6.2%, and purchasing manager surveys across Italy and France showed continued expansion. Separately, the U.S. dollar is showing early signs of weakening after its conflict-driven safe-haven rally, with the euro climbing to 1.1601 against the dollar — a Reuters survey of economists this morning explicitly flagged the expectation that the war-driven dollar rebound is beginning to fade.

On the geopolitical front, the most consequential development of the day is a quiet but significant one:

Bahrain has circulated a revised United Nations Security Council draft regarding the Strait of Hormuz that drops binding enforcement language from its prior version. This is not a ceasefire, and we would caution against reading it as one — but in diplomatic terms, the shift from binding to non-binding framing is how parties create space for a face-saving resolution. Meanwhile, Federal Reserve officials are signaling that households and businesses are still treating the oil shock as a short-term disruption rather than a permanent inflation driver, and Goldman Sachs published a note this morning arguing that markets have become too aggressive in pricing Fed rate hikes in response to the conflict. Taken together, the picture that is emerging is one where the worst-case macro scenarios — an entrenched inflation spiral, a prolonged Hormuz closure, a synchronized global slowdown — are each compressing modestly at the margin.

Private Wealth Advisors | For Client Discussion Purposes Only