The Great American Squeeze Of 2026

American Consumers Have Never Been Less Confident Despite Inflation Fears Easing; UMich With the "mini war" still ongoing (albeit with a 'ceasefire' in place), expectations were for a continued slide (already at record lows) in the American consumer's sentiment in preliminary UMich data for May released today. And while the expectations were correct in direction, once again they underestimated just how bad things are as the headline UMich print fell from 49.8 to 48.2 (a new record low and below the 49.5 expectation). Under the hood was more mixed with Current Conditions tumbling...

GOP Lawmakers Leery Of Trump's Billion-Dollar Ballroom-Security Package Wary of the terrible election-year optics, some federal Republican legislators are less-than-enthusiastic about approving a request for a billion dollars in security funding relating to President Trump's White House ballroom project. Some of them shared those feelings with reporters after they received a Tuesday afternoon closed-door briefing by Secret Service Director Sean Curran.  When he first rolled out the 90,000-square-foot ballroom project, Trump repeatedly emphasized that the project would cost $200 million and be funded entirely with private donations. Now the ballroom itself is...

Futures Rebound, Trade At All Time Highs On, What Else: Tech And Iran Optimism US equity futures are higher and just shy of a new record, with technology names leading futures higher ahead of April jobs report, after Trump’s assertion that the Iran ceasefire is still holding despite an exchange of weapons between the US and Iran overnight, and a deep weekly loss for oil help futures regain positive momentum. Markets are higher ahead of NFP data later this morning following yesterday’s very ‘unwindy’ session (High Beta Momo -7.96%, Software vs Semis +5.83%, Power...