Here’s what you’ll find in today’s edition:

• Mag 7 earnings and the potential for more tariff curveballs will keep investors on their toes this week. 

• A crypto ETF update after an inflow surge not seen in months.

• It’s the last week before the FOMC’s May meeting and there are some big economic reports on the calendar.

Stocks lose recovery path 

After closing out last week in the green, stocks were back on the decline Monday as investors waited for more signs from the White House that trade deals are in the works. 

The forces that moved equities last week were 1) Trump’s confirmation that he would not look to fire Fed Chair Powell and 2) Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s comments on the “unsustainable” situation with China. So far today, we just haven’t seen similar optimism. 

Bessent, during a CNBC appearance this morning, put the ball in China’s court.  

"I believe it's up to China to de-escalate, because they sell 5x more to us than we sell to them," he said. "These 125% and 145% tariffs are unsustainable."

Unfortunately, I wouldn’t hold my breath. And I imagine traders feel the same way given the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite indexes lost as much as 1.4% and 1.7%, respectively, intraday Monday. 

By 2 pm ET, both indexes had pared some losses but were still well below Friday’s close. The S&P 500 was trading down 0.5% at that time while the Nasdaq Composite had lost 0.8%. 

I get more into the specific economic data reports we’re waiting on in the “On Our Radar” section below, but another big focus this week will be earnings. 

Four Magnificent 7 companies will report this week: Microsoft and Meta on Wednesday followed by Apple and Amazon on Thursday. In terms of tariff impact on these names, Apple’s reliance on its Chinese supply chain is the most concerning. 

I wrote this a couple weeks ago, but I think it still applies so I’ll say it again: If tariffs hit Apple, Trump is going to have a very big problem. My reasoning is that Apple is the largest company in the US, by market cap at least. If iPhones become 145% more expensive, it wouldn’t just anger the masses, it would hit Americans in their retirement accounts. 

It took one week and a very concerning state of Treasury markets for Trump’s first pivot on his Liberation Day policies. Later, he issued what he said will be a “temporary” exemption for most of Apple’s products. Consider this my official bet that those exemptions will not be temporary. 

All this to say, we will certainly be listening to Apple’s earnings call for any comments about its overseas operations. We’re also going to have an eye on the White House for any further tech tariff adjustments, especially should Apple shares take a big hit. 

Alphabet reported last week, and execs said they were nervous about Trump ending the “de minimus” imports exemption that applies to goods valued at less than $800. The impact to the Google parent company here is ad spend. If retailers have to pay more to get their products, their marketing budgets shrink (so the logic goes).

Tesla, another Mag 7 that reported last week, also admitted that higher tariffs are bad. Still, investors were happy enough to hear that CEO Elon Musk will be reducing his role at DOGE to rally shares. 

Keep an eye on your inbox as we follow this story. It’s sure to be a busy week.

— Casey Wagner

The Next Cycle Won’t Be Traded Into Existence.

It will be built by the teams scaling infra, refining UX, and shipping real products to real users. Permissionless IV brings together the people doing just that:

• Ian Barile (PayPal) – building stablecoin infrastructure into one of the world’s largest payments networks

• Michael Rihani (Coinbase) – leading onchain product across payments and emerging markets

• Uma Roy (Succinct) – shipping ZK infra that makes blockchain data faster, lighter, and easier to verify

June 24–26 | Brooklyn, NY | Get Your Tickets

Your weekly Strategy stat — this time the number of BTC the company bought last week as the asset’s price trended upward.

The purchase from April 21-27 cost the firm $1.42 billion ($92,737 per coin). It now owns 553,555 BTC, acquired for $37.9 billion ($68,459 per coin). 

In case you missed Ben’s recent piece on bitcoin corporate adoption, here ya go.

As prices rose, investors piled money into crypto ETFs. But beware of the XRP fund headlines. 

Crypto investment products notched net inflows of $3.4 billion from April 21-25, a CoinShares report highlighted — the largest influx since December and the third-biggest weekly haul ever.

Nearly $3.1 billion went into US spot bitcoin ETFs, according to Farside Investors data. Their Ethereum counterparts got some love too, as the $183 million of net inflows broke an eight-week outflow streak. 

“We believe concerns over the tariff impact on corporate earnings and the dramatic weakening of the US dollar are the reasons investors have turned towards digital assets, which are being seen as an emerging safe haven,” CoinShares’ James Butterfill noted.

The key word is “emerging,” as bitcoin more recently decoupled from tech stocks (at least temporarily). BTC was trading around $94,130 at 2 pm ET — up 10.5% from a week ago.

It’s difficult to sort out which type of investors these inflows are coming from.

Bloomberg Intelligence’s Eric Balchunas noted the speed at which the bitcoin ETF inflows picked up in an X post, adding: “Prob some is basis trade back in effect, that's the fast money that tends to come in and out [with] price.”

He’s referring to hedge funds seeking to profit from the “basis spread” — the difference between BTC’s futures and spot prices. We do know from Q1 13F filings that hedge funds represent ~37% of the spot bitcoin ETP AUM that is held by professional investors. 

Outside this pro investor cohort that discloses BTC holdings in filings, however, are individual investors and smaller financial advisors that also represent “a significant portion” of the investment activity we’re seeing, Bitwise research head Ryan Rasmussen told me.

“Given that, I'd assume the flows this week were primarily driven by long-term investors and a less meaningful portion was driven by hedge funds deploying the basis trade,” he added.

And separately (but ETF related), two quick clarifications as some XRP product headlines might be misleading readers: 

First, the proposed XRP funds by ProShares are futures-based offerings, not spot. Also, a ProShares spokesperson told me that while some have reported those going live on Wednesday, the firm has no plans to launch them then. Keep in mind too that CME Group isn’t set to introduce XRP futures contracts until May 19.  

You know we’ll offer any important crypto ETF updates to you when we have them.

— Ben Strack

Happy Monday! We hope you had a restful weekend, because we have a very busy week ahead. Major economic reports scheduled to be published include March’s PCE print and the April jobs report. Both will be telling ahead of the FOMC's May meeting. 

Here’s what we’re watching: 

• On Tuesday, the Census Bureau will release its advanced estimate for the March US trade balance in goods. February’s report showed a $147.9 billion deficit, which was a $7.7 billion decrease from January’s deficit. We’ll be watching for signals on supply chain disruptions and economic forecasts, but the extent of President Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs of course will not be reflected in March’s figure. 

• On Wednesday, we’ll get the first Q1 GDP print. Estimates range significantly. The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model is calling for GDP to come in at -2.5% for the first quarter, while the New York Fed’s Nowcast is showing GDP will grow 2.63%. For the past few years, both models have underestimated growth, but I’d say it’s unlikely the figure comes in higher than Nowcast’s projection. 

• The April employment report will be released on Friday. Analysts are expecting it to show the US economy added 133,000 nonfarm payroll jobs, which would be a decrease from March when 228,000 positions were added. Unemployment and hourly wage growth are expected to remain unchanged at 4.2% and 0.3%, respectively.

— Casey Wagner

• New SEC Chair Paul Atkins (speaking at the agency’s Friday crypto custody roundtable) gave his “warmest personal thanks” to Hester Peirce, who he said has earned the “Crypto Mom” title. He added: “Market participants engaging with [blockchain] technology deserve clear regulatory rules of the road.”

• New York City Mayor Eric Adams and CTO Matthew Fraser are set to host New York City’s first crypto summit on May 20. You can assume Casey and/or Ben will be stopping by.

• Blockworks co-founder Jason Yanowitz chatted with BlackRock’s Samara Cohen about the asset management giant’s crypto strategy. Check it out here.