Powell holds. Powell exits. Powell stays. Pick one.

Records Held, Capex Cracked, Bulldozers Carried

Apple beat. Caterpillar lifted. Meta and Microsoft paid the AI bill.

1. Premarket snapshot: S&P 500 futures sit flat at 06:45 ET, holding the 7,209.01 cash close, the index’s first close above 7,200. Dow futures little changed near 49,652.14, Nasdaq futures track Apple’s premarket bid. Apple beat Q1 on revenue $111.18B, EPS $2.01, iPhone +22% year on year, China at $20.5B versus $18.9B consensus. Bar cleared.
2. Sector rotation: The Dow had its best day in weeks because two industrial names with no AI exposure delivered. Caterpillar +10% on a record backlog. Eli Lilly +9% on weight-loss drug demand that has not noticed any recession. Russell 2000 added 2.1%. Information Technology lagged. Every other S&P sector advanced.
3. Earnings or guidance: Big Tech split sharply. Alphabet +9% Thursday after a 34% April rally on cloud, ads, Waymo. Meta lost 7.5% on a $125-145B capex range. Microsoft fell 3.8% on $190B capex flagged to memory cost. Qualcomm jumped 15% on a hyperscaler note despite a soft current-quarter guide. The AI thesis paid for itself.
4. Cross-asset nuance: Brent touched $126 before settling $114.01, WTI $105.07, gasoline $4.30 national, $6.01 in California. Yen at 155.57 then 157.10. Powell warned inflation is misbehaving, December cut now off the table. The Fed split four ways and called it consensus.

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📊 Full SPX technical analysis available in this morning’s briefing.
Levels, structure, and key triggers for today’s session. [Read it here →]

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Fear at 33, Outflows Three Deep, Bitcoin Held Anyway

BTC reclaimed $77K overnight. The screen says scared. The tape says no.

1. Price snapshot: Bitcoin trades $77,000 at 06:00 ET Friday, up 2% in 24 hours after recovering from an overnight dip near $75,500. Ethereum hovers $2,280, down from a weekly peak at $2,404. Solana $84, XRP $1.38, Dogecoin up 2-3%. Total crypto market cap $2.65 trillion, up 1.3% on the session. BTC took itself off the mat.
2. Flows and positioning: US spot Bitcoin ETFs bled $137.77M on April 29, a third straight outflow day. IBIT minus $54.73M, FBTC minus $36.13M. Ethereum ETFs lost $87.73M. XRP ETFs the only green print at $3.59M. April still closed +$1.9B for BTC ETFs. Fear and Greed sits at 33, down 14 points week on week.
3. Leadership and rotation: BTC dominance steady at 58.0%, ETH at 10.5%. Capital concentrated in majors, no rotation to alts because nobody is feeling experimental at $126 Brent. Open interest pulled back into FOMC week, futures aggregate OI in the $180-200B band. Cardano carried the only negative funding rate, the cleanest counter-positioning on tape.
4. Catalysts and roadmap: Consensus 2026 lands in Miami May 5 to 7, the industry’s flagship event and a clear catalyst window for ETF flow turn and altcoin narratives. Senate banned its own members from Polymarket and Kalshi bets. Wasabi Protocol exploit cost up to $5.5M. North Korea-linked actors took 76% of 2026 thefts.

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TL;DR – The Bottom Line

1. S&P 500 closed April at 7,209, first above 7,200, best month since 2020. Apple beat. Meta tripped. Microsoft tripped. The tape took the win regardless.
2. SPX cue: futures flat at 06:45 ET, holding the cash close. 7,200 is the new floor. Apple’s open will tell you whether records are technical or real.
3. Bitcoin clawed back $77K from a $75.5K overnight flush. ETF outflows now stretch three sessions. Fear and Greed at 33, lower by fourteen points week on week.
4. Powell held 3.50-3.75% in his last meeting as chair. Four dissents, most since 1992. Warsh advances. December cut off the table. Powell stays as governor anyway.
5. Brent touched $126 wartime peak Thursday before settling $114, WTI $105. Hormuz still shut, blockade extended. Exxon, Chevron, Moderna report. April jobs due before bell.