Hope you had a good Easter. The President certainly had an interesting one.

While much of America was at church or hiding eggs, Trump posted a fiery threat to Iran on Truth Social, promising to hit power plants and bridges starting Tuesday if the Strait of Hormuz isn't reopened.

Markets reopen today after the long weekend, and this might be the most important week of April. We're going to walk you through everything you need to be watching.

This is not financial advice. Always do your own research. Past performance doesn’t guarantee future results.

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Let's start with the elephant in the room.

Trump extended his Strait of Hormuz deadline to Tuesday at 8PM ET. He also dropped an F-bomb and said “Praise be to Allah” in a Truth Social post. Interesting negotiation tactics, but regardless: what’s clear is that if Iran doesn't reopen the strait to international oil traffic, Trump has threatened strikes on power plants and bridges. Mediators from Pakistan, Egypt, and Turkey are discussing a potential 45-day ceasefire, but Iran says it won't reopen Hormuz for a "temporary" deal. Oil is sitting around $110/barrel.

This is the single biggest variable for markets this week. A ceasefire deal could send oil plunging and stocks ripping. An escalation does the opposite. As @platochi put it on X: "At this point, the DD and research I've been doing for stocks are going to take a backseat... technicals & fundamentals are just noise. The real signal is the macro environment."

He's not wrong. When the President is threatening to bomb bridges on Easter morning, the stock screeners takes a back seat.

But here's the thing: not everyone is doom and gloom. Marc Andreessen posted on X that the "AI job loss" narratives are fake, arguing that AI is driving a massive productivity ramp that leads to more demand and more jobs, not fewer. He pointed to employer recovery from post-COVID hiring corrections, recovery from interest rate spikes, and the elasticity of demand as reasons to be bullish.

And JC Parets, one of the most respected technical analysts on Wall Street, quote-tweeted Andreessen's "I have never been so bullish on the United States of America" and added: "The biggest tailwind is probably how many people still haven't figured this out. They're too busy complaining to notice. Good."

In other words: some of the smart money sees a setup where everyone is focused on the war headlines while the underlying “invest America” prospect is actually strong. Something to keep in mind.

The Fed releases minutes from its last meeting at 2:00 PM ET on Wednesday. Markets will be scanning every sentence for hints on rate cuts. The same morning, Delta Air Lines (DAL) reports Q1 earnings before the bell. Wall Street expects EPS of $0.64 (up 39% YoY) on $14.8B in revenue. The wild card: jet fuel costs are up 60% since March because of the war. Delta is the first major airline to report and will set the tone for the entire travel sector.

Three big releases hit at 8:30 AM: Core PCE (the Fed's preferred inflation gauge), personal income and spending, and the final Q4 GDP revision. Plus weekly jobless claims. Core PCE is the one to watch. If it comes in hot, rate cut expectations get pushed out. If it's tame, markets rally.

March CPI drops at 8:30 AM. Expectations are around +0.3% month-over-month, 2.5% year-over-year. But analysts are warning this could surprise to the upside because of surging gas prices driven by the war. One strategist called February's tame CPI report "the calm before the storm."

Getting Core PCE on Thursday and CPI on Friday back-to-back is unusual. It gives markets two shots of inflation data in 24 hours. If both come in hot, rate cuts get pushed further out. If both are cool, expect a relief rally.

This is not a week to be asleep at the wheel. You've got Trump's Iran deadline Tuesday, Fed minutes Wednesday, the Fed's favorite inflation gauge Thursday, and CPI Friday. All of it layered on top of thin post-holiday liquidity (half of Europe and Asia are still on Easter break).

The playbook: watch the Iran headlines first. Everything else is secondary until we know whether Tuesday's deadline leads to a deal or an escalation. After that, let the data speak.

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Cheers,
Brandon & Blake of Invested Inc