| |
|
Daily Brief · No. 2
PrediXmarkets
|
Wednesday
April 29, 2026
|
| |
Market intelligence, condensed. |
|
|
|
|
— THE OPEN
| |
|
Yesterday Wall Street found the first crack in the AI trade. Yesterday Main Street kept buying lattes, beverages, payment swipes and pickup trucks. Powell holds his last FOMC at 2 p.m. ET. The disconnect on his desk this afternoon is wider than the one he faced this morning. |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
Powell's Last Word
2:00 PM ET
FOMC announces at 2:00 p.m. ET. Polymarket prices a 99.8% chance of no change with $43 million traded. Powell's press conference at 2:30 is his last as Chair. The Senate Banking Committee meets at 10:00 a.m. ET in Dirksen 538 to vote Warsh forward — Polymarket gives him a 92% chance of full Senate confirmation by May 15. There is no fresh dot plot in April. Every adjective in today's statement will be parsed for hawks or doves. Polymarket's bet on zero cuts in 2026 nudged up to 44% overnight, from 41% on Monday.
|
|
| |
|
The First AI Crack
Monday night the Wall Street Journal reported OpenAI missed its own user and revenue targets. CFO Sarah Friar told colleagues she is worried the company cannot fund its compute contracts if growth doesn't accelerate. ChatGPT's share of generative AI traffic fell from 86.7% a year ago to 64.5% in January. Tuesday's reaction: Oracle -5%, SoftBank -10%, Nvidia and Broadcom down 3-5%. Anthropic now trades at $1 trillion on Forge — above OpenAI's $880 billion — the first time it has commanded a higher implied valuation. Tonight: Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta all report Q1 earnings after the close. Combined planned 2026 AI capex: roughly $645 billion. The market is about to find out whose AI bill is whose.
|
|
| |
|
UAE Walks Out on OPEC
The United Arab Emirates announced Tuesday it will leave OPEC and OPEC+ effective May 1 — sixty years after Abu Dhabi joined in 1967. The UAE was the cartel's third-largest producer behind Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Energy Minister Suhail Al Mazrouei said the timing was chosen to be "least disruptive." Capital Economics: "the ties binding OPEC members together have loosened." The UAE could feasibly add 1 million barrels per day once Hormuz reopens. Brent touched $112.70 intraday yesterday — the highest since March 31 — before settling near $110 overnight. Trump on Truth Social: "Iran has just informed us that they are in a 'State of Collapse.'" The cartel that set oil prices for fifty years just lost its most ambitious member. The market that lost the cartel is still going up.
|
|
|
|
Cracks Above · Buyers Below
Yesterday the AI infrastructure trade cracked while consumer-facing names quietly beat across the board. Same tape, two different economies:
STARBUCKS
U.S. transactions +4.3% |
+5% afterhours, raises FY guide |
| |
VISA
payment volume up |
+17% revenue, $20B buyback |
| |
COCA-COLA / GM
soda and trucks |
both beat, KO +4%, GM raises |
| |
ORACLE / SOFTBANK
AI compute exposure |
-5% / -10% on OpenAI report |
Four consumer-facing names beat. Two AI-adjacent names broke. The American who pays $4.18 for gas and a $7 latte is, against most expectations, doing fine. The American who owns a basket of AI suppliers had a bad Tuesday.
|
|
|
↑ Pre-Market
S&P futures (+0.16%)
Nasdaq futures (+0.37%)
Hang Seng (+1.2%)
|
|
↓ Down
WTI Crude ($99.57)
Bitcoin ($76.5K)
Kospi (-0.39%)
|
|
|
|
|
When OPEC was founded in September 1960, the average American gallon of gas cost 31 cents. The cartel's first major test came thirteen years later, when its 1973 oil embargo quadrupled crude prices in six months and ended the postwar economic order. Most institutions that look permanent are simply old. Yesterday the UAE — OPEC's third-largest producer — left on its own terms while the cartel still has the appearance of control. Two consumer surveys also landed yesterday: the Conference Board reported its highest reading of 2026 (92.8) on the same morning the University of Michigan's parallel survey sat at a fifty-year low (49.8). Most of the time, the building does not collapse. Sometimes one wall just quietly walks away while the lights stay on.
|
|
|
Today's Quote
"
This quarter marked a milestone for Starbucks — and the turn in our turnaround.
— Brian Niccol, CEO, Starbucks · April 28, 2026
U.S. transaction growth, two quarters in a row. Whatever the consumer is supposedly doing, they are still buying $7 lattes.
|
|
|
WORTH WATCHING
Five windows. 10:00 a.m. ET — Senate Banking on Warsh, Dirksen 538. 2:00 p.m. — FOMC statement; 2:30 p.m. — Powell's last press conference. After 4:00 p.m. — Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta all reporting in the same hour. 8:30 a.m. tomorrow — Q1 GDP advance estimate plus core PCE inflation, the first numbers Warsh will inherit.
— The PrediXmarkets desk
|
|
|
For informational purposes only. Not investment advice.
|