Greetings folks and welcome to Edition No 28,
Two months ago Trump's Gold Card visa was projected to raise $1 trillion and help balance the budget. A year before that, Trump said it would generate $50 trillion. Last December, Howard Lutnick stood next to the president holding a gilded card and told reporters the government had sold $1.3 B worth in days. On Thursday last week, under oath at a House Appropriations Subcommittee, Lutnick testified that the actual number of approved applicants is one. He did not name the person. The most publicly known card recipient is Nicki Minaj, who got one for free at a White House event in January, except a White House official later clarified that hers is a "memento," not a visa, on account of her having been a legal permanent resident for two decades. There are reportedly "hundreds in the queue." At the current pace, the program will hit Trump's $50 trillion target sometime around the year 18,765. Let’s get right to it.
TL;DR: Per FactSet, Mag 7 earnings grew 22.8% year-over-year in Q1 2026. Strip Nvidia out and the figure is 6.4%. The other 493 S&P 500 companies grew 10.1%. The four hyperscalers (Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon) reported on Wednesday and raised combined 2026 AI CAPEX guidance from $649B to roughly $725B. Apple beat expectations on Thursday with $111.2B in revenue and a $100B buyback. The market reaction was selective: Alphabet up 10% on Thursday after cloud revenue grew 63%, Meta down nearly 9%, Microsoft down nearly 4%. The S&P 500 closed above 7,200 for the first time ever and finished its best month since 2020.
According to FactSet, the Magnificent 7’s blended Q1 2026 earnings growth came in at 22.8%. The S&P 493 posted 10.1%. That gap has been the story for two years. But strip out Nvidia and the remaining six megacaps grew at just 6.4%, below the 493’s 10.1%. For the full year, the pattern holds: Mag 7 at 24.6% with Nvidia, 13.2% without. The 493 is projected at 15.9%. The equal-weight S&P 500 is ahead of market-cap-weighted for the first time in years. Ten of 11 sectors are projected to post positive revenue growth. The broadening is real. The Magnificent 7 is not seven companies carrying the market. It is one company carrying six companies carrying the market. Hope that sentence wasn’t too confusing.
On Wednesday, four of the seven reported. Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon all beat their numbers, then raised 2026 CAPEX guidance: Microsoft to $190B (up roughly $35B above analyst consensus, citing higher memory pricing), Alphabet to $180-190B (up from $175-185 B), Meta to $125-145 B (up $10 B). Amazon held at $200B but spent $43B on CAPEX in Q1 alone. Combined 2026 hyperscaler CAPEX now sits around $725 B, up from a $649B estimate in February. Bank of America has the four spending roughly 90% of operating cash flow on CAPEX, against a 10-year average of 40%. Amazon's free cash flow over the trailing 12 months collapsed to $1.2B, a 95% decline YOY. The market gave its reaction: Alphabet up 10% Thursday on cloud revenue growth of 63%, finishing its best month since November 2004. Meta down 9%. Microsoft down 4%. Apple landed Thursday afternoon with $111.2B in revenue (its best March quarter ever), iPhone revenue up 22%, a $100B buyback, and shares up 4% on Friday.
The number that matters most is $725 billion in combined hyperscaler capex for 2026. All of them are tapping debt markets to fund the buildout, and all of them keep guiding higher. Wall Street’s message is clear: if you’re going to spend that much, the revenue better be extraordinary. Alphabet showed the return on investment. The other two haven’t yet. Nvidia reports in May, and almost every dollar of capex from this week’s earnings flows through its data centre revenue line. The Magnificent 7 is still the market’s centre of gravity and Nvidia is the Sun. Apologies, I reread this section and realized that it was way too many numbers for a Friday.
Sentiment:
Reddit's r/investing and r/wallstreetbets ran side-by-side post-earnings threads on Wednesday night, with the dominant take being "rotation, not crash," and a near-consensus that Meta's $145 B ceiling is the riskiest single bet in the index. LinkedIn portfolio managers were quietly moving allocations toward equal-weight ETFs (RSP) coming into Wednesday. Stocktwits on Alphabet was euphoric. Stocktwits on Meta was the inverse. Hacker News took a different angle, focused on whether power availability is now the binding constraint on AI CAPEX (Microsoft told investors they will remain capacity-constrained through 2026 despite the spend). Bluesky was bearish on AI ROI, with frequent references to the Bank of America 90-%-of-cash-flow figure. Seeking Alpha's pieces on Alphabet vs Meta were the most-read in the platform's category by Thursday afternoon. Dominant mood: the AI thesis is intact, but the leverage to it has narrowed to two tickers (Nvidia and Alphabet) and the rest are just expensive.
TL;DR: France had a "catastrophic" first quarter with CRE investment volumes halved across every asset class. Germany held up but inflation jumped from 1.9% to 2.7% overnight and 10-year Bund yields hit 3% for the first time since 2011. UK volumes were 16% above last year but North American capital fell to a 10-quarter low. The consensus across all three markets: the Iran war impact hasn’t meaningfully fed into completed transactions yet. That comes in Q2. Deals take 5-6 months to close. The worst is ahead.
France’s Q1 CRE investment came in at just €1.9 billion. Volumes halved year-over-year. Transaction count halved. Offices in the Paris region fell 47%, regional offices 61%, logistics 63%, retail 35%, residential 38%. Half the quarter’s volume came from single-asset deals above €200 million, which normally represent 15-20% of activity. CBRE France: “All asset classes are down.” But the Iran war isn’t the primary cause, at least not yet. Deals in France take 5-6 months from marketing to close. Q1 figures reflect the Bayrou government collapse in autumn 2025, not the February bombing campaign. The war’s contribution so far: 50 basis points on the swap rate and 40-80 basis points on the French 10-year OAT, which compressed the Paris office risk premium to 45-50 basis points. It should be 75-100. Knight Frank France (they need to rebrand) has revised its 2026 forecast downward across three scenarios, with the worst case projecting 2027 volumes at €8.3 billion, a 34% decline.
Germany posted nearly €9 billion in Q1, up 5-20% depending on the source, with 390 transactions. But inflation jumped from 1.9% to 2.7% immediately after the war began. The five-year swap climbed 65 basis points to 2.99%. 10-year mortgage rates rose 38 basis points to above 4%. The 10-year Bund yield briefly hit 3%, the highest since 2011. GDP forecasts have been more than halved to roughly 0.6%. PGIM’s head of value-add sees the energy cost impact as the biggest risk, but notes this started from higher rates than the Ukraine war, so the shock may be less dramatic. The interesting counter-narrative: Germany is being repositioned as a “safe haven” by international investors, a complete reversal from two years ago. Residential construction pipelines, however, are “drying up completely.”
The UK posted £10.8 billion in Q1, 16% above last year but half the record £21.6 billion from Q4 2025. The red flag: North American investment fell to a 10-quarter low of £2 billion, while European investment hit a six-year high of £2.1 billion, surpassing North American for the first time since 2019. SONIA three-year swap jumped 100 basis points on day one of the war, dropped 25 when Hormuz briefly reopened, and climbed back. Industrial and logistics had their weakest quarter since late 2023. Office investment was up 31%. Shopping centres hit a decade high. Segro, the UK’s largest REIT, says there has been “no discernible effect on leasing momentum” so far. The market consensus across all three countries: the war’s impact on completed deals is still months away, and if the conflict drags into H2, the combination of compressed risk premiums, rising swap rates, and declining sentiment will be severe. As someone who underwrites real-estate for a living, when a market is this unpredictable, you just need to stop underwriting and throw darts at a board.
Sentiment:
LinkedIn CRE circles in Vancouver, Toronto, London, and Frankfurt are running the same conversation in different accents: term sheets are being repriced more aggressively than at any point since the post-COVID rates shock. Reddit r/CommercialRealEstate is debating whether North American capital pulling out of the UK is a structural rotation or a temporary risk-off. Stocktwits on the listed European REITs (LAND.L, BLND.L, GFC.PA, VNA.DE) is split, with short interest up modestly but no panic. UK property forums are quietly noting that 11 deals above £200 million closed despite the war, but most were already in the pipeline from 2025. Bluesky was bearish on European cap rates, with frequent references to JLL's risk-premium collapse. Hacker News had a sidebar discussion on whether French OAT volatility is now the binding constraint on European institutional allocation. Dominant mood: deals are still happening, but the people doing them are doing them cautiously, expensively, and in fewer countries than they were six months ago.
TL;DR: Charter negotiations for a new multilateral defence-financing institution concluded in Montréal on Wednesday. Canada will host the headquarters once ratified. The bank is designed to issue AAA-rated bonds backed by member states with a 20% paid-in / 80% callable capital structure, targeting €127-130B of capacity. All six big Canadian banks are partners, alongside JPMorgan, Goldman, Deutsche, ING, and Commerzbank. Germany rejected the project in December, the UK distanced itself in September, and the US was not party to the Montréal negotiations.
The Defence, Security and Resilience Bank is the brainchild of Rob Murray, who previously created NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator and its Innovation Fund. The charter was negotiated across three rounds in Montreal starting March 23, with 18 founding countries participating and a potential expansion to 40, including Indo-Pacific partners like Japan, South Korea, and Australia. Canada was unanimously chosen as host country, with Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and Halifax all bidding for the headquarters. Canada’s lead negotiator is Isabelle Hudon, CEO of the Business Development Bank of Canada. All six of Canada’s major banks announced support by February. Prime Minister Carney has personally raised it with multiple world leaders.
The financial engineering is interesting. Member countries contribute paid-in capital upfront and callable capital as a crisis backstop. The callable commitments help secure a target AAA rating, which would allow the bank to raise approximately £100 billion (~$135 billion) for defence projects. NATO member contributions count toward the new 5% of GDP defence spending pledge. The bank co-finances with national and commercial lenders and provides guarantees that unlock loans to defence SMEs, many of which have been “debanked” by commercial institutions due to ESG restrictions and reputational risk. Roughly 70% of NATO countries face higher borrowing costs than AAA-rated nations like Germany. The DSRB pools allied credit strength to give everyone AAA-equivalent access. No joint liability, unlike Eurobonds. Individual bills, collective discounts.
The charter is done, but ratification, capitalization, governance, and actual lending are all in progress. “Operational in under 20 months” is ambitious for a multilateral institution negotiated across 18-40 countries. No joint liability is politically smart because it avoids Eurobond politics, but it also means the bank is only as strong as individual commitments. Canada winning the headquarters is significant for talent and deal flow. The real test is whether defence SMEs that were debanked by commercial lenders get funded, or whether this becomes another multilateral talking shop with a nice website This bank is expected to generate at least 3,000 high paying jobs, if Toronto is the new HQ it will hopefully make a small dent in the unsold condo market. I also have a plan to get the American’s on board, lets call the Internation Bank of War.
Sentiment:
LinkedIn Canadian banking and defence-industry circles have been quietly building expectations for months. The Big Six's collective participation was the strongest signal. Reddit r/Canada and r/CanadaPolitics had a dual conversation: pride at hosting a major multilateral institution mixed with skepticism about funding a "war bank." Bluesky was sharply critical, with extensive reposting of the World BEYOND War coalition's open letter. Stocktwits on Canadian defence-adjacent names (CAE, MDA Space, Heroux-Devtek) saw modest interest, but no breakout. X/Twitter included extensive NATO-watcher commentary about the absence of Germany, the UK's hesitation, and the US's empty chair, with multiple analysts noting that "transatlantic defence is being built around the largest transatlantic defence spender." Hacker News focused on the technical question of how a callable-capital structure achieves AAA without all G7 members. Dominant mood: this is the most consequential institutional move Canada has made in a decade, and the question is not whether it works in principle but whether €130 B materialises without Berlin, London, and Washington in the room.
TL;DR: In Edition 21, we wrote that Russia was earning up to $150 million a day from the Iran war oil windfall. Two months later, Putin held a televised meeting scolding his economic team. GDP shrank 1.8% in January-February, the first contraction since 2022. Oil tax revenue in March dropped by half. The budget deficit hit $58.6 billion in Q1. Ukraine’s drone attacks on export infrastructure prevented Russia from cashing in on $100+ oil. Officials have warned of a financial crisis by summer.
In Edition 21, we covered the Iran war’s unlikely winners. Russia was earning an estimated $150 million per day in additional revenue from the oil price surge after the Strait of Hormuz closure pushed Brent above $100. The FT estimated $3.3-4.9 billion in additional revenue by end of March. The US even eased sanctions on Russian oil to help India and China source alternative supply. Russia was supposed to be the war’s biggest economic beneficiary.
Two months later, Putin is on television scolding his aides. GDP shrank 1.8% in January-February, the first contraction since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Manufacturing, industrial production, and construction all turned negative. Oil tax revenue in March dropped by half year-over-year. The budget deficit widened to $58.6 billion in Q1. The massive military spending that drove GDP growth of 4.1% in 2023 and 4.9% in 2024 has run out of runway. GDP grew only 1% in 2025, and the Kremlin’s own 1.3% forecast for 2026 is already wrong. Central bank governor Nabiullina said the country faces labour shortages “for the first time in modern history,” with unemployment at a historic low of 2% because everyone is either employed or fighting.
The windfall never arrived because Ukraine’s relentless drone attacks destroyed the export infrastructure needed to ship the oil. Russian crude exports plummeted 11.4% in February to 6.6 million barrels per day, the lowest since the 2022 invasion. Black Sea export terminals were damaged. Even with oil above $100, Russia couldn’t get enough product out the door. Officials have privately warned Putin of a potential financial crisis by summer. A state-backed think tank flagged a possible banking crisis by October. The head of Russia’s Union of Industrialists said many companies are in a “pre-default situation.” The $150 million per day we wrote about in March never fully materialised. Its only a matter of time before Putin’s economic team accidently falls out of a window.
Sentiment:
Reddit r/geopolitics treated the Bessent reversal as the definitive end of the waiver story, with the sentiment splitting between "this should have been done six months ago" and "the May 16 deadline gives Russia three weeks to load as much as possible." LinkedIn macro-strategy and emerging-markets circles were focused on the Q1 deficit blowing through the full-year target and what that does to Russia's domestic borrowing capacity. Stocktwits is quiet on Russian names (most are sanctioned). Bluesky was preoccupied with the Zyuganov 1917 quote and what it actually signals from a Communist Party loyalist. Hacker News had a long thread on whether Ukrainian drones at $20-30K each have permanently changed the economics of attacking refineries with $4M Patriots. X/Twitter is split on whether the Gulf-state FX swap line requests imply de-dollarisation pressure. Dominant mood: Russia is structurally worse off than it was three years ago, the Iran war did not save it, and the only remaining lever (the U.S. waiver) closes in two and a half weeks.
TL;DR: Two men broke the two-hour marathon barrier at the London Marathon on Sunday, both wearing the Adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3. The shoe weighs 97 grams, improves running economy by 1.6%, costs $500, and is designed to be worn once. Adidas stock rose 2% on Monday. Nike’s triple-plate version was banned in 2020 for being too fast. The current shoe has one plate and broke the record anyway. In baseball, an MIT physicist designed a torpedo bat that gave the Yankees 15 home runs in three games. Every sport eventually has its “is the equipment competing or is the athlete?” moment.
97 grams in a men's size 9.5, the first sub-100-gram race-legal marathon shoe ever produced. 30 % lighter than its predecessor, with a 1.6 % improvement in measured running economy. The previous men's marathon world record was Kelvin Kiptum's 2:00:35 at Chicago in October 2023, set in Nike’s. Eliud Kipchoge had run 1:59:40 in Vienna in 2019, but in a non-competitive event with pacers, in a prototype Alphafly that was banned by World Athletics in 2020 for having a 50mm sole and three carbon plates. The 2020 rule fixed the limit at 40mm and one rigid plate, in one plane. Adidas built the Pro Evo 3 to sit at 39mm with a single carbon perimeter element they call "EnergyRim." Fun fact, this $500 shoe is only designed to used for one marathon.
In 2008, Speedo collaborated with NASA on a polyurethane bodysuit called the LZR Racer. At the Beijing Olympics, 23 of 25 swimming world records fell to LZR wearers. Between February 2008 and July 2009, 140 world records were broken in similar suits. In 2010, FINA banned them. The records still stand. In 2017, Nike released the Vaporfly 4%, which was 4% faster than the next best shoe. In baseball, Major League hitters are using a bowling-pin-shaped "torpedo" bat, designed by Aaron Leanhardt, an MIT-trained physicist who was a Yankees coach in 2023-2024. On opening weekend of the 2025 MLB season, the Yankees hit nine home runs in a single game using them. MLB has not ruled yet. Hundreds of players are now adopting them.
The window between the innovation and the prohibition is where the brand makes its returns. That window is currently open for Adidas's running shoe and for the torpedo bat, neither of which has been banned. Adidas and Nike share the global running shoe market, with about 19% and 27% respectively, and the next World Athletics review of the 40mm rule is overdue. Begs the question, who is competing the engineers or the athletes?
Sentiment:
Reddit's r/running was equal parts awe and annoyance. The aspirational mood ("I'm finally going to break 4 hours in these") sat next to the grumpier take ("the marathon record is now a shoe drop"). r/Marathon_Training was specifically debating whether the Pro Evo 3 is meaningfully better than the predecessor or just lighter. Stocktwits on Adidas (ADS.DE / ADDYY) was bullish but contained, with most threads noting the 2026 YTD drag from US tariff exposure as the bigger story. Hacker News went down two parallel rabbit holes: the materials-science of the EnergyRim and the regulatory question of whether a perimeter carbon element is meaningfully different from a carbon plate (the rule says "rigid embedded plate"). LinkedIn sportswear-industry circles were focused on the limited release as a marketing template. X/Twitter had extensive engagement from elite runners crediting the shoe and from Nike loyalists pointing out that the Vaporfly is still legal and still fast. Dominant mood: the shoe earns the moment, and the next ban is a question of timing, not outcome.
This week, Hershey's CEO Kirk Tanner said something on his Q1 earnings call that no candy executive would have predicted three years ago: GLP-1 weight-loss drugs are good for the gum and mint business. Ice Breakers retail sales were up 8 % last quarter. It is now Hershey's third-largest confection brand. The reason, never officially listed by Novo Nordisk but confirmed by 9 % of users in their own clinical trial, is that semaglutide slows digestion and produces what is colloquially called "Ozempic breath" (bad breath). Hershey's protein bar sales were up 17 % in the same quarter, because GLP-1 users are protecting muscle mass while losing weight. In March, Lindt reported that U.S. premium chocolate sales among GLP-1 households grew nearly 17 % in 2025, three times faster than the non-GLP-1 population.
"It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so." - Mark Twain.
This edition was particularly finance heavy, I’ll make it lighter next week. Have a fantastic weekend. I welcome feedback and please forward this if you see fit.
Many thanks,
Sam.
Stock Snapshots
Market Snapshots
Friday May 1, 2026, intraday
Sources
Financial Times, Bloomberg, Reuters, CNBC, CBS News, NPR, Associated Press, Wall Street Journal, BBC, AOL/Detroit News, FactSet (John Butters Earnings Insight), CNN, Variety (Todd Spangler), Atlantic Council (Defence Bank report December 2024), CoStar (Norman / Lafond / Meier / Katzschke April 27, 2026), Knight Frank France, Lambert Smith Hampton, Savills, JLL, BNP Paribas Real Estate, Cascade Institute, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Department of Finance Canada (April 29 release), BMO Financial press release, Sri Lanka Guardian, Paperjam, Tectonic Defense, World BEYOND War open letter, DSR Bank, Wikipedia (LZR Racer, Vaporfly, Tokyo 2020 marathon shoe history), World Athletics 2020 Press Release, MLB.com, Sports Business Journal, Lemelson Center, Si.com, Gear Patrol, Fast Company, BNN Bloomberg, WWD, Trading Economics, MacRumors, AppleInsider, Cult of Mac, 9to5Mac, Fox News, MarketScreener, Bakery and Snacks, News24, GoInvest, Brownstone Worldwide, Latest Commentary, Yahoo Finance, TheStreet, The Motley Fool, Gurufocus, Tech Brew, The Next Web, Uncover Alpha.
Stock data pulled Friday May 1, 2026 at noon PT. Currency at Friday spot rates. 1 USD = 1.3573 CAD.
