Powell's Long Goodbye 🏛️

Welcome back to the Day Trading newsletter 📈

Stocks finished April with their best monthly gain in five years, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq notched fresh records on Apple's $111 billion blowout, and Jerome Powell told the country he'd step down as Fed chair on May 15 but stay on the Board of Governors anyway.

Let’s get into it 👇️ 

📆 Monday 5/4 — Palantir earnings (after the close): First major AI-software pure-play of the week and the cleanest read on whether the AI trade can hold without leaning on hyperscaler capex. Consensus looks for EPS of $0.28 (+115% YoY) and revenue of $1.54 billion (+74%).

📆 Tuesday 5/5 — AMD earnings (after the close) + ISM Services PMI (10am ET): Lisa Su's read on data-center GPU demand vs. Nvidia, with MI355X ramp commentary the key swing factor. Earlier in the day, ISM Services tells us whether the Iran-driven inflation pulse is reaching the consumer-facing economy.

📆 Wednesday 5/6 — Disney earnings (before the bell) + Uber earnings (before the bell): Disney is the streaming + parks read on the soft-consumer narrative; Street looking for $1.49 EPS on $24.85 billion revenue. Uber faces a tougher setup — analysts expect double-digit EPS declines on double-digit revenue growth.

📆 Thursday 5/7 — Weekly jobless claims (8:30am ET): Labor-market temperature check ahead of Friday's payrolls. A move above 245K would put a fresh dovish bias on the table for Warsh's first FOMC.

📆 Friday 5/8 — April nonfarm payrolls (8:30am ET): The first labor read since the FOMC's 4-vote dissent. Anything below 100K hands the doves a clean easing case for June. Anything above 200K complicates Warsh's debut. March printed +178K with unemployment at 4.3%.

📱 Apple jumped 3.2% Friday to close at $280.14 after reporting record Q2 results, with revenue up 17% to $111.2 billion and iPhone revenue rising 22% to a March-quarter record near $58 billion. Services hit a record $31 billion, up 16%. The board authorized an additional $100 billion in stock buybacks. It was the company's first earnings report since Tim Cook announced he'll hand the CEO role to John Ternus on September 1. (CNBC)

📊 The S&P 500 closed Friday at a record 7,230.12 and the Nasdaq hit 25,114.44, both fresh all-time highs, capping an April that gained roughly 10% — the broader market's best month in five years. The Dow lagged on the day, slipping 0.31% to 49,499.27 as money rotated out of defensives. Apple led the Mag 7 leg of the rally; ten of eleven sectors finished higher. (CNBC)

🤑 Berkshire Hathaway's cash pile climbed to a record $397 billion in Q1 — Greg Abel's first quarter as CEO — up from $373 billion at year-end 2025. Operating earnings rose 18% to $11.35 billion, narrowly missing the $11.56 billion FactSet consensus. At Saturday's annual meeting, Abel told shareholders he won't break up the conglomerate. Buffett attended in person but sat with the board. (CNN)

🛢️ Seven OPEC+ countries agreed Sunday to raise oil output by about 188,000 barrels per day in June — the third consecutive monthly hike — even as the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed. The increase is largely symbolic given the blockade: tanker traffic is running at roughly 5% of pre-war levels. Crude was trading around $100.69 a barrel after sliding 10% over the past month. (CNBC)

⛽️ Exxon and Chevron both beat Q1 estimates Friday but reported sharp profit declines tied to Iran-war hedging losses. Exxon's adjusted EPS of $1.16 topped the $1.00 consensus on $85.1 billion in revenue, but net income fell 45% on a $706 million hedge loss tied to Middle East disruptions. Chevron earned $1.41 per share — its biggest beat since 2020 — but took a $2.9 billion hedge charge. (CNBC)

🏠️ The 30-year fixed mortgage rate ticked up to 6.30% Friday per Freddie Mac, with Bankrate's daily survey showing 6.38% — both the highest in roughly six weeks. Rates moved up alongside Treasury yields as Iran-war oil shocks revived inflation worries. Even with the bump, mortgage purchase applications are running about 20% above year-ago levels, but housing economists expect activity to stay subdued through spring. (Yahoo Finance)

🥇 Gold steadied above $4,600 an ounce Friday after rallying nearly 2% the day before, while silver pushed above $74 on a sharp dollar slide tied to reports Japan intervened in currency markets. Both metals remain near records. Major-bank forecasts see gold at $5,000-$6,000 and silver at $100 by year-end, driven by central-bank buying, Iran-war hedging demand, and persistent inflation. (Fortune)

Jerome Powell confirmed Wednesday after the FOMC press conference that he will step aside as Federal Reserve chair on May 15 when his term expires, but will remain on the Board of Governors "for a period of time to be determined." 

Powell told reporters the administration's "unprecedented" attacks on the Fed and an open Department of Justice probe into his conduct "left me no choice."

He said he won't leave the board "until this investigation is well and truly over, with transparency and finality."

His governor term doesn't expire until January 2028 (meaning he could legally hold the seat for nearly three more years).

The same morning, the Senate Banking Committee advanced Kevin Warsh's nomination to chair the Fed in the first fully partisan committee vote on a Fed-chair nominee in history, 13-11 along party lines. The full Senate vote is expected the week of May 11.

Powell staying denies President Trump a Republican majority on the seven-member Board of Governors and is the sharpest institutional pushback yet against the administration's pressure campaign on the central bank.

He'll be the first outgoing chair to remain on the board since Marriner Eccles in 1948.

The move also reframes the entire Warsh era: with Powell still in the room, every rate vote becomes a more public contest, and last week's 8-4 dissent (the most on the FOMC since October 1992) tells you this committee is already fractured.

Markets read it as a cap on the most aggressive easing scenarios.

Gold pushed back above $4,600, the dollar weakened, and Bitcoin clawed back near $78,000.

What to watch: The full Senate vote on Warsh the week of May 11. Republicans hold the majority, so confirmation is expected, but the margin will set the tone for how aggressively Warsh tries to recut the FOMC's policy bias.

Then Warsh's first FOMC meeting in mid-June, which he's expected to chair.

The single most consequential signal from here: whether Powell, as a non-chair governor, dissents against Warsh's first rate decision.

If he does, every macro trade in the back half of the year could reset.

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⚠️ Disclaimer: Not financial advice. Do your research before making any trades.