Big research day (meetings at 10 a.m., 3:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. in addition to board meeting between noon and 2 p.m..

None.

I added to my Intel  (INTC)  short at $113.07 on the opening.

Positions: Short INTC S

From Peter Boockvar:

Tech is also seeing a pull forward of ordering/Other important info direct from companies

CDW, one of my go to tech earnings calls as they sell into all areas of tech with customers in commercial, education and government selling hardware, software and services. The stock dropped 20% yesterday on mixed results and said this of note:

Something that I’ve been seeing and expressing on the pull forward of ordering post war was just confirmed by them, “Our first quarter performance was driven primarily by strong underlying demand as well as customer urgency to get ahead of memory related price increases and potential supply chain concerns.” I bolded for emphasis. For those chasing the parabolic move higher in some stocks, take note.

“what we’ve seen in Q1 and what we expect in Q2 is an elevated level of solutions hardware, really customers showing an urgency to get this product that could go up in price, might be supply constrained. That being said, in the back half of the year, we don’t expect that those categories to drop off a cliff. We just expect it to normalize in the environment. And I think what we’d see in the back half is a more balanced view of our different categories.”

“At the core of our growth strategy is a clear shift we are seeing from customers moving beyond interest in AI to a focus on how to put it to work in real environments at scale and with measurable business impact.”

“And that leads us to our outlook. We continue to approach the year with discipline and prudence and we are maintaining our view for the US IT addressable market to grow in the low single digits in 2026 on a customer spend basis with 200 bps to 300 bps of CDW outperformance.”

Whirlpool stock is down sharply this morning after missing estimates and they said this in their earnings release that didn’t sound good:

“War in Iran resulted in recession-level industry decline in the US as consumer confidence collapsed in late February and March.”

From Marriott and whose stock rallied 2% yesterday as experiential things continue to outpace the purchase of big ticket items:

“First quarter global RevPAR rose 4.2%. RevPAR in the US and Canada rose 4%. Luxury and resort hotels continued to lead in the region, though strength was broad based across segments and chain scales. While luxury RevPAR rose nearly 7%, select service RevPAR increased 3.5%, a meaningful improvement from the fourth quarter when select service was down more than 1% y/o/y.”

“While the conflict in the Middle East weighed on results in March, first quarter international RevPAR increased 4.6%. RevPAR in APAC rose over 7%, driven by strong ADR growth and an increase in demand from Chinese guests. Beginning in March, Middle East travel corridor disruption started to impact select APAC markets, including India and the Maldives.”

Leisure RevPAR growth was about 5% for both leisure and group and rose 1% for business transient dragged down by government.

“We expect lower than previously anticipated RevPAR growth in the near term in APAC, driven by softer long haul demand and to certain markets that rely on Gulf hubs connectivity…Turning to EMEA, we assume that air capacity and travel sentiment will continue to be impacted, particularly in the Middle East, through the end of the year.”

From Restaurant Brands International, the franchisor of Burger King, Popeye’s and Tim Horton’s and fell 5.5% yesterday:

At Burger King, “We saw strong performance on both an absolute and relative basis this quarter, delivering nearly 6% comparable sales growth in the US and significantly outperforming the industry.” They though are getting squeezed by higher beef costs, “We are closely monitoring beef costs and expect normalization over time with relief now anticipated closer to 2027.”

“Tim’s delivered comparable sales growth of 1.5% in Canada, outperforming a relatively flat QSR industry amid a backdrop of lower consumer confidence and unfavorable weather in January and March. Growth was broad based across all dayparts with notable strength in morning and late-night, largely driven by cold beverages and breakfast foods.”

Popeye’s was the weak spot with a comp drop of 6.5%.

From Dine Brands, the franchisor of IHOP and Applebee’s and whose stock fell 3.5% yesterday:

“As the quarter progressed, the operating environment became more dynamic and in many ways, more challenging as inflation for food away from home and higher gas prices put a strain on households. With consumer sentiment declining to historically low levels, discretionary spending has become harder to justify, prompting some guests to more carefully evaluate lower cost alternatives across restaurants, grocery and other food channels. We’re seeing the most pressure on lower income consumers. And as a result, this is driving abundance and differentiated experiences like Applebee’s two for 25 platform and IHOP’s Everyday Value menu.”

Bloomin’ Brands had a huge day yesterday, spiking by 41% as their turnaround is making progress. They own Outback Steakhouse, Carrabba’s Italian, Bonefish Grill, and Fleming’s Steakhouse and said this:

“Our Q1 comparable restaurant sales were positive 90 bps with traffic down 180 bps. We experienced approximately 240 bps of weather impact this year driven by the winter storms experienced in the earlier part of the quarter.”

Outback comps fell 30 bps with “traffic down 240 bps.” Carrabba’s comps rose 130 bps with “traffic of negative 270 bps.” Bonefish did well with comps up 6.1% with positive traffic of 300 bps. Fleming’s saw a comp rise of .8% with traffic down 290 bps.

They saw overall commodity inflation of 4.6% and labor inflation of 3.1%. For the full year they see commodity inflation of between 4.5% and 5.5% with “high single digit inflation in beef.”

Here is what they are seeing from their consumer, “the guests in Outback that tend to run above 55, 60 with household incomes under that $75,000 range, they are managing their checks. But what’s quite interesting, they’re adding frequency of visitation. So they’re actually remaining very engaged. And this is why we’ve kept the affordability offers.”

And, “what we see is the opposite too…we see younger cohorts with bigger household incomes, they’re coming in and whether they’re new or frequent, they’re trading up into the higher tiers. They’re going into that $17.99, they’re going into the $20.99. They’re enjoying that experience and they’re moving up the incentive curve.”

From Kraft Heinz, a very depressed stock that we own and which was up 2.4% yesterday:

“I’d say the pricing environment can be best characterized as very rational. We’ve come through this inflationary cycle, which was obviously unprecedented, the consumer is under a lot of pressure. And so our focus is very much on value, creating value and affordability, and we have looked at opportunities to adjust pricing where we think it’s gone a little too far, and you’re seeing some results in that.”

“But we’ll always look at the input cost environment and say our first line of defense is productivity, and we’re really looking to ramp up our productivity and have a top notch productivity year this year because it’s really needed, because the consumer can only absorb so much price...Ideally business like ours would take about half of input cost inflation in price, and then the rest in productivity. And if we can do better than that, this is the year to do it because the consumer is under a tremendous amount of pressure, and we look at it as very much our goal to be affordable and be there for our consumers in an environment like this.”

From Disney, another stock we own that jumped yesterday:

“No, we haven’t seen any change in consumer behavior from elevated gas prices thus far and aren’t currently seeing a material impact on the remainder of the fiscal year based on forward bookings. Disney World bookings are pacing up strongly. And even with our 40% increase in cruise capacity, booked occupancy remains in line with the prior year. However, we’re mindful of the macro uncertainty consumers are facing, and we’re not immune to the impacts, including how a significant further rise in fuel prices from current levels could eventually lead to changes in consumer behavior. If that possibility were to occur, each business has levers in place to make adjustments in order to help offset those kinds of macro pressure.”

More on the parks and the better than expected top line growth seen, “Admissions were stronger. Food and beverage, merch, really everything came in a little bit stronger than expected...Right now, we’re not seeing any macro weakness to point to, including at the international parks.”

While we didn’t hear this from other social media advertisers, Snap said this:

Ad revenue rose 3% y/o/y, “driven primarily by growth in direct response advertising revenue, partially offset by continued headwinds in the North America large client advertising business, and an approximately $20 to $25 million impact from the geopolitical headwinds in the Middle East experienced during March.” They also mentioned those “headwinds” continued into April.

From Maersk, at the center of shipping diversions and delays and whose stock is down 7% in Copenhagen today:

“At the macro level we continue to see strong demand growth across all of our segments and more segments and most regions, the big exception was North America which has remained weak since the start of the trade tensions about a year ago. This resilient level of demand is easily observable in our own number but it wasn’t enough to stabilize the ocean freight rates. The supply overhang there has worsened as the many new vessels delivered throughout 2025 and into 2026 have outpaced this strong demand.”

“The Middle East conflict is not expected to have a material impact at this stage through the use of both operational and commercial levers...It is important to highlight that the outbreak of this conflict is primarily impacting ocean. Logistics and services and terminals have not been and we don’t expect will materially be impacted.”

“The Gulf region before the outbreak of the conflict represented about 2% to 3% of global containerized trade. So direct volume impact is limited on the global scale. The situation in the Strait of Hormuz has also impacted the situation in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and we have reversed and halted the gradual return to the Red Sea transits for safety reasons since the beginning of the hostilities.”

“We have seen rate spikes since the outbreak of the conflict, which averages on spot rates up to about 40% since the end of February. It is important to note that this rate increase has been roughly in line with the cost increase we have faced.”

Quickly overseas with some other news and data, the Norges Bank in Norway raised interest rates to 4.25% and NOT expected. The Governor said “Inflation is too high, and there are prospects that inflation will remain elevated ahead. The committee judges that a higher policy rate is needed to return inflation to target within a reasonable time horizon.”

In response, the Norwegian krona is rallying to the highest level in 4 years vs the US dollar.

The Malaysian central bank held rates unchanged at 2.75%.

I keep talking about the front loading of orders I’m seeing. That was seen in the German factory orders in March which rose 5% m/o/m, well better than the estimate of 1%. The Economy Ministry said it was most likely due to the pull forward of orders, “The war in Iran has triggered an energy price shock that will eventually feed through to the prices of other, intermediate goods. Against this backdrop, orders were likely placed in greater numbers in March in anticipation of rising prices and potential supply bottlenecks.”

Positions: None.

Upside:

-AGL +51% (earnings, guidance)

-RXT +48% (earnings, guidance)

-CCRN +29% (acquired by Knox Lane for $13.25/shr in cash)

-HIMX +29% (earnings, guidance)

-DDOG +28% (earnings, guidance)

-AAON +27% (earnings, guidance)

-SABR +24% (earnings, guidance)

-JMIA +21% (earnings, guidance)

-ELA +20% (earnings)

-BLBD +18% (earnings, guidance)

-GENI +18% (earnings, guidance)

-FTNT +17% (earnings, guidance)

-MTSI +17% (earnings, guidance)

-FOUR +15% (earnings, guidance)

-CGNX +12% (earnings, guidance)

-HWM +12% (earnings, guidance)

-TREX +10% (earnings, guidance)

-DASH +8.7% (earnings, guidance)

-ALB +8.1% (earnings, guidance)

-U +8.1% (earnings, guidance)

-EZPW +7.8% (earnings)

-WRBY +7.1% (earnings, guidance)

-DNUT +6.4% (earnings, guidance)

-TPR +4.2% (earnings, guidance)

-MCD +3.5% (earnings, color)

-MSGE +3.0% (earnings, color)

Downside:

-TRDA -51% (DMD drug ENTR-601-44 data in Phase 1/2 ELEVATE study; earnings)

-WHR -21% (earnings, guidance)

-SHAK -20% (earnings, guidance)

-PLNT -19% (earnings, guidance)

-VITL -19% (earnings, guidance)

-AKBA -18% (earnings)

-ZTS -13% (earnings, guidance)

-BYND -12% (earnings, guidance)

-SRPT -10% (earnings, guidance)

-SNAP -8.5% (earnings, guidance)

-IONQ -7.6% (earnings, guidance)

-IOVA -7.6% (earnings, guidance)

-AMPX -7.5% (earnings, guidance)

-LNG -5.9% (earnings, guidance)

-RDW -5.6% (earnings, guidance)

-MNKD -5.3% (earnings, color)

-INSM -5.2% (earnings, guidance)

-COHR -4.9% (earnings, guidance)

-PZZA -4.2% (earnings, guidance)

-EPAM -3.8% (earnings, guidance)

-SYM -3.7% (earnings, guidance)

-C -2.4% (investor day announcements, commentary)

Positions: None.

Positions: None.

Positions: None.

Treasury Auctions

11:00 a.m.: Treasury Announces a 3 and 6 Month, 13 and 52 Week Bill Auction;

11:30 a.m.: Treasury hosts a $90B 4 and an $85B 8 Week Bill Auction;

2:00 p.m.: Treasury Buyback (liq support);  p.m.: Treasury inv. class auction data

Fed Speakers:

1 p.m.: Fed Bank of Minneapolis President Kashkari (Voter) participates in fireside chat before the 2026 InvestUP CEO Summit, Marquetts, MI (Audience Q&A expected. No media Q&A. No prepared/embargoed text. Livestream at www.minneapolisfed.org/live);

2:05 p.m.: Fed Bank of Cleveland President Hammack (Voter) speaks on "Fed 101 and policy" in a fireside chat before the 2026 Ohio CEO Summit: "Blueprints for Bold Leadership," Columbus, OH ( Q&A expected. Livestream here);

3:30 p.m.: Fed Bank of New York President Williams (Voter) participates in moderated discussion before event organized by the Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress, Newburgh, NY (No text. Moderated Q&A expected)

Economic Calendar:

Positions: none.

From this morning's commentary:

CDW, one of my go to tech earnings calls as they sell into all areas of tech with customers in commercial, education and government selling hardware, software and services. The stock dropped 20% yesterday on mixed results and said this of note:

Something that I’ve been seeing and expressing on the pull forward of ordering post war was just confirmed by them, “Our first quarter performance was driven primarily by strong underlying demand as well as customer urgency to get ahead of memory related price increases and potential supply chain concerns.” I bolded for emphasis. For those chasing the parabolic move higher in some stocks, take note.

“what we’ve seen in Q1 and what we expect in Q2 is an elevated level of solutions hardware, really customers showing an urgency to get this product that could go up in price, might be supply constrained. That being said, in the back half of the year, we don’t expect that those categories to drop off a cliff. We just expect it to normalize in the environment. And I think what we’d see in the back half is a more balanced view of our different categories.”

“At the core of our growth strategy is a clear shift we are seeing from customers moving beyond interest in AI to a focus on how to put it to work in real environments at scale and with measurable business impact.”

“And that leads us to our outlook. We continue to approach the year with discipline and prudence and we are maintaining our view for the US IT addressable market to grow in the low single digits in 2026 on a customer spend basis with 200 bps to 300 bps of CDW outperformance.”

For the third day in a row I have a Board meeting. Between noon and about 1:30 PM today.

Mama take this badge off of me
I can't use it anymore
It's getting dark, too dark to see
I feel I'm knockin' on heaven's door

- Bob Dylan, Knockin' On Heaven's Door 

I thought that The Divine Ms M's column this morning, Knocking on Giddy's Door, was quite value-added and illuminating

Position: None

The S&P Short Range Oscillator is back in overbought territory at 2.2% vs. 1.5%.

Position: Short SPY (S), QQQ (S)