Iran, stablecoins and the digital yuan
plus: market confusion, US jobs, new section and more
“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday’s logic.” – Peter Drucker ||
Hello everyone! Those of you that took a short break over the weekend, I hope it gave you the chance to recharge. 😊
A couple of announcements:
1) Below I introduce a new section ideal for sticklers for detail such as myself – definitions.
2) My first Substack live series launches this Friday! It’s not about crypto nor macro (that’s coming soon!), but about newsletters. More detail further down.
A long one today, apologies, tomorrow’s will be shorter.
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IN THIS NEWSLETTER
Coming up this week: inflation and geopolitics
✨Introducing “Press Publish” ✨
🔦New section 🔦 Term of the day: Strait
Monday mood: Iran, stablecoins and the digital yuan
Markets: thick confusion
Macro: US jobs
Crypto is Macro Now offers ~daily commentary and updates on the overlap between the crypto and macro landscapes. Plus links and more.
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Coming up this week: inflation and geopolitics
Today, several European markets are closed for the Easter holiday.
The US gets the March report on the ISM services sector activity, expected to show a slowdown.
And President Trump holds a press conference “with the military” at 1pm ET – I’m guessing this will be to trumpet the rescue of two military personnel from inside Iran.
On Tuesday, the leader of Taiwan’s Kuomintang (KMT) opposition party leaves for China and a potential meeting with Xi Jinping – this is significant as it is much more likely that China waits for (and helps along) a government change on the island rather than invade with military force.
Vice President Vance visits Hungary in the run-up to its elections this weekend, presumably to help campaign for incumbent Victor Orban. The EU is not going to like this.
Also, we get the latest New York Fed report on consumer inflation expectations – these are expected to jump from 3.0% to 3.7%.
On Wednesday, we get the Eurozone PPI for March, with the year-on-year contraction expected to slow slightly from -2.1% to -1.9%.
Also on Wednesday, we get the minutes from the latest FOMC meeting, which should shed more light on the shift to a more conservative rate stance.
On Thursday, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis drops the latest report on Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE), the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge. The month-on-month increase for the core index (ex-food and energy) in February is forecast to hold at 0.4%, while the year-on-year increase in the core index is expected to decelerate from 3.1% to 3.0%.
And the IMF Spring Meeting kicks off in Washington DC.
Friday brings the US Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation read from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, with the headline index for March forecast to show an acceleration from 2.4% year-on-year to 3.4%, and from 0.3% month-on-month to 1.0%, which would be the highest read since 2022. Yikes. The core index (ex-food and energy) is expected to show an acceleration in March from 0.2% month-on-month to 0.3%, and from 2.5% year-on-year to 2.7%.
(chart via Bloomberg)
Also on Friday, we get the latest preliminary consumer survey for April from the University of Michigan – this is unlikely to be rosy.
And over the weekend, Hungary heads to the polls in an election that could unseat Victor Orban, the EU’s most Russia-friendly leader and a thorn in the EU’s political side, after 16 years in power.
✨Introducing “Press Publish”✨
This Friday, I’m launching a Substack live series – not on crypto nor macro (coming soon!), but on writing newsletters. At 11amET, I’ll be talking to fellow newsletter writers about why we do what we do, what our days are like, our frustrations, our wins, our advice, where we think media is going and a lot more.
I’ll be kicking it off with my friend and former colleague Christine Kim, one of the leading experts on the Ethereum ecosystem, now also covering Bitcoin, and the author of the ACD After Hours and BTC Before Light newsletters, host of the Ready for Merge and the Meet the Developers podcasts, and more besides. (You can see her recent publications here.)
Come and join us at 11amET at the following link: https://open.substack.com/live-stream/154954?utm_source=live-stream-scheduled-upsell (I think that’s the link, I’m still getting the hang of this.)
Term of the day: strait
(🔦 Hi all! Introducing a new feature: definitions. With so much jargon floating around, I want to help clarify confusion while poking at semantics, and refresh overall understanding of relevant terms and sometimes phrases. 🔦 So, on most days I’ll define/explain a term I’m seeing that I know not everyone is familiar with, or that we all use without fully understanding. )
🔦 Strait: a narrow passage of water connecting two larger bodies of water. The term evolved from the Latin “strictus”, which means bound tight, compressed, constricted. This became estreit or estrait in Old French, and streit in Old English, referring to a narrow or confined place. Other words that emerged from this root are stringent, strain and, of course, strict.
Should it be “strait” or “straits”? When speaking about geography, either goes, even when talking about just one strip of water – for instance, you’ll see both the Strait and the Straits of Hormuz. If the term comes after the name, such as the Bering Strait (which separates Russia and Alaska), it’s singular – unless there are several water strips, such as with the Danish Straits. But if it comes before the name (such as the Strait/s of Gibraltar), it’s either. Unless, of course, you’re referring to being in a constricted, compressed and generally very uncomfortable situation, in which case it’s “dire straits”, plural.
And it’s never written with a “gh” because straits are rarely straight.
