by diastole-admin | Apr 20, 2026 | Uncategorized
April 20, 2026
Things in the Persian Gulf region remain unstable, with Iran opening the Strait of Hormuz on
Friday and closing it again on Saturday. At this moment, it remains closed. Oil prices are rising
on the news from the weekend, and stock prices opened lower.
But if you look at the trend of equity markets over time, stock prices rise. Why is the historical
trend of stocks perpetually upward? Inflation, of course, is a major factor. Inflation is caused by
too much money chasing too few goods, and if we consider shares of stock as the “goods”, then
it is significant that since the late 1990s, “the number of publicly traded companies has fallen by
more than half” according to The Washington Post. There are certainly not fewer companies,
but there are fewer PUBLIC companies. Many company founders are choosing to work with
private investors rather than undergo the scrutiny and regulations that come with going public.
All of which may explain to some extent why, in the middle off a war, the major stock indices hit
record highs last Wednesday. Some investors are buying stocks that profit from war, some
investors are buying stocks that profit from a hoped-for peace, and all investors are chasing
fewer available shares than we saw in the ‘90s.
Bond yields have risen during the war, reflecting speculation that scarce oil will cause inflation,
and inflation will cause the Federal Reserve to raise rates. On the day before the war was
declared in February, the ten-year Treasury Note was paying 3.96%. Today it is paying 4.20%.
The’s a six percent rise in less than two months.
And speaking of the Fed, the released minutes of the most recent Fed Open Market Committee
meeting showed (according to Schwab) that there is a growing consensus among the FOMC
governors that rate hikes sometime this year could be required to tame inflation. The next
FOMC meeting is next week.
The Producer Price Index for March was released last week, and showed that prices for final
demand (the prices that producers receive from consumers who buy their goods) rose 4% over
the past year. That is the highest reading since the covid-era inflation of three years ago.
The closed Strait of Hormuz is making oil shipments scarce, but Saudi Arabia and the United
Arab Emirates cleverly planned for this eventuality already. They built back-up pipelines that can
carry seven million barrels per day in Saudi Arabia and 1.5 million barrels in the UAE. You could
also say that the U.S. was looking ahead when it developed new oil fields and new technology
to retrieve the oil. We are now a net exporter of oil, none of which has to be shipped through the
Strait of Hormuz.
Powerball, beloved of lottery gamblers, is now expanding. Going forward, it will be possible to
buy Powerball tickets in England, Scotland, and other parts of the United Kingdom. This move is
meant to increase the size of jackpots, and of course the pool of players who are not me, or as I
like to them of them, enemies.
Amazon is expanding its new-car buying program to include Jeep, Chevrolet, and other brands.
The car market in the U.S. is worth about $1.3 TRILLION annually, and Amazon wants in. It
started the program with just Hyundai, and now is offering cars in over 130 cities. The program
allows buyers to access the inventories of local dealerships and complete their purchases online. Dealerships pay Amazon to participate. No word on whether you can return your new car
at your local Kohl’s.
Allbirds (in full transparency, let me say I own a very comfortable pair in green) has sold its shoe
business and has announced that it is planning to become an AI company. Its stock rose 350%
last week. In a related story, the Girl Scouts have sold their cookie business and in the future
will be selling Cloud Storage. Only one of these stories is false!
For the week ending on April 17th, the Dow Jones Industrials finished at 49,447, the Standard &
Poor’s 500 at 7,126, and the Nasdaq Composite at 24,468. The yield on the ten-year Treasury
Note was 4.248%. WTI crude oil cost $86.92 per barrel, while Brent crude cost $94.91 per
barrel. N.Y. gold cost $4,780 per ounce, and one Euro was worth $1.18.
Elizabeth E. Cook
Partner, Diastole Wealth Management
News and information presented here was gathered from sources believed, but not guaranteed,
to be reliable, including (but not limited to) Yahoo Finance, Barron’s, The Wall Street Journal,
CNBC, Bloomberg and Bloomberg Business Week, CNN, The Washington Post, Axios, The
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Charles Schwab, ABC News, Morning Brew, USA Today, Reuters,
CBS, and The AP. If you have questions, please call Diastole at 203.458.5220, or email me, Liz
Cook, at ecook@dwinvest.com. Thank you for reading.
Christie’s Auction House in Paris sold 120,000 tickets at 100 euros apiece, for a raffle of a
Picasso painting. The prior owner of the painting received one million euros – the approximate
value of the painting, while the excess 11 million euros were donated to Alzheimer’s research. A
Parisian software engineer held the winning ticket. My winning ticket. Apparently you can’t win if
you don’t play.
by diastole-admin | Apr 13, 2026 | Uncategorized
April 13, 2026
The U.S./Iran peace talks broke down after the first day.
The president has announced that the U.S. will blockade Iran’s ports.
Hungary’s 16-year authoritarian ruler Viktor Orban was decisively defeated in his reelection bid. Last year, Hungary fell to the poorest of the EU’s 27 member states.
The Artemis II astronauts returned to earth safely. Yay, science!
Stock markets benefitted from the Iranian war cease-fire last Wednesday, and the subsequently planned peace talks. Now that direct talks have ended, stocks are slipping and the price of oil is rising. Intermediaries from Pakistan, Egypt, and Turkey are still trying to make progress toward peace.
As expected, inflation is increasing, led by oil prices and everything they affect: food costs, automobile costs, and the cost of almost everything else that is trucked around the country. (And if you don’t know how much of the stuff we buy is trucked in, drive around the back of a Walmart sometime to see the empty semis.)
February’s personal-consumption-expenditures price index was released last week and showed that prices rose 0.4% in February, while the year-over year number stayed at 2.8%. Then we got the consumer-price index (CPI), which rose 0.9% in March alone, and 3.3% for the trailing twelve months. You’ll of course remember that the Federal Reserve has an inflation target of 2%. According to Axios, consumer prices have risen a cumulative total of 26% since January of 2021.
The University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey preliminary reading for April fell 11% to 47.6. If the final reading confirms this number, it would be the lowest reading on record. The previous low of 50 came at the height of the Biden-era inflation. (Inflation hit 9.1% in the month of June 2022.)
Initial unemployment claims rose to 219,000 in the week ending on April 4th. The March job numbers, as reported on April 5th, showed employment rose by 178,000. Together, the data show a relatively stable employment situation. We must remain aware, however, that our pool of workers is stagnant, what with immigration crackdowns and Boomer retirements. So far artificial intelligence (AI) is creating jobs, not killing them, but we don’t know for how long this will continue. Currently 61.9% of the working-age population is working or looking for work, which is the lowest level since 1977, except for the pandemic. In order to grow our gross domestic product (GDP) we must add workers or make current workers more productive.
The most prevalent form of fraud that Americans face is now cyber investment scams. According to the FBI, in 2025 more than one million people complained of these scams to the authorities, and the total amount that was stolen by scammers exceeded $20 billion.
For the week ending on April 10th, the Standard & Poor’s 500 finished at 6,816, the Nasdaq Composite at 22,902, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average at 47,916. The yield on the ten-year Treasury Note closed at 4.317%. WTI (U.S.) crude oil cost 103.66 per barrel, while Brent crude (international) cost $101.95. These prices are changing all the time. New York gold was bid at $4,747.20 per ounce, and one Euro was worth $1.17.
Elizabeth E. Cook
Partner, Diastole Wealth Management
News and information presented here was gathered from sources believed, but not guaranteed, to be reliable, including (but not limited to) Yahoo Finance, Barron’s, The Wall Street Journal, Axios, CNBC, Business Insider, Bloomberg and Bloomberg Business Week, The Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Guardian, CNN, Fortune, The Hustle, Gizmodo, Reuters, The New York Times, and The AP. If you have questions, please call Diastole at 203.458.5220, or email me, Liz Cook, at ecook@dwinvest.com. Thank you for reading!
Rolls Royce has announced a new EV, the Black Badge Spectre. It is sleek and gorgeous and costs half-a-million dollars. In a related story, it cost more than $100 to fill my gas tank last week. Darn it, I should have bought the Rolls!
by diastole-admin | Apr 6, 2026 | Uncategorized
This week’s public-service announcement: your tax return and/or tax payment and/or extension paperwork are due next Wednesday, April 15th. Remember that the post office no longer guarantees a postmark on the day you drop off your mail. You can go inside the post office and get a postmark, or file electronically. If you need anything from Diastole, PLEASE call us. We are happy to help.
In non-tax news: the American/Israeli war against Iran continues, along with its pressure on oil and gas prices. The president issued another ultimatum, declaring that if the Strait of Hormuz is not open tomorrow, he will escalate the bombing. Pakistan and Turkey drafted a cease-fire agreement that calls for the Strait to reopen, but Iran has already rejected the terms, saying it wants an end to the war.
Oil from the United States is generally referred to as West Texas Intermediate Crude (WTI), while the international benchmark is Brent Crude. One week ago, WTI oil cost $102.88 per barrel. Today it costs $110.34. That price is for a futures contract. If you actually want to buy a barrel of oil today and take it home with you, the price is higher.
Gas prices are also higher, of course. On February 27th, the national average for a gallon of gas stood at $2.98 – just one day before the war in Iran started. Today that average is more than $4.10 per gallon. The influence of oil and gas prices on inflation is relentless and puts pressure on the Federal Reserve to HIKE interest rates. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said that energy disruptions tend to be short-lived, but the Fed can’t be patient forever in the face of years of elevated inflation. The next Fed Open-Market Committee meeting will occur on April 28-29. And on this coming Friday, we will receive a new Consumer Price Index (CPI) reading. Watch this space!
Stocks, which started the year strong, are down for the year-to-date, but were actually up last week on the hopes that the war would be ending soon. That was the first week of gains in the last six weeks. I am sorry that my sentence structure reflects the complexity of the situation. I should do better.
Meanwhile, bond prices are slipping, causing yields to rise. Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions. Mortgage rates have also risen for the fifth-straight week.
Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX includes his xAI lab and X social-media service. It has just filed for an initial public offering (IPO) with a target company valuation of more than $2 trillion (up from $1.75 trillion). The actual stock sale for SpaceX’s IPO is expected to hit $75 billion. Once SpaceX is partially held in the public’s portfolios, it will have to open its previously confidential books. That will be interesting. And the world’s richest man will get richer.
The March jobs report was released on Friday and showed 178,000 net new jobs created – versus 59,000 which were expected. The unemployment rate fell slightly to 4.3%. The February jobs report, which had shown a loss of 92,000 was revised downward by an additional loss of 41,000 jobs. Job gains for March were largely in the healthcare and social assistance sectors, which benefit from our aging baby boomer population.
Deja vu? Thieves forced open the entrance door of an art museum in Parma, Italy and stole paintings by Renoir, Cezanne, and Matisse worth millions of euros. The theft took less than three minutes. Now the canny art thieves can move on to another heist. It was just about six months ago that the shocking Louvre robbery took place.
For the week ending on April 3rd, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 46,504, the Standard and Poor’s 500 closed at 6,582, and the Nasdaq Composite Index closed at 21,879. The yield on the ten-year Treasury Note finished at 4.331%. U.S. (WTI) crude oil cost $110.34 per barrel, while brent crude cost $108.60 per barrel. N.Y. gold was bid at $4,690 per ounce. One Euro was worth $1.16.
Elizabeth E. Cook
Partner, Diastole Wealth Management
News and information presented here was gathered from sources believed, but not guaranteed, to be reliable, including (but not limited to) Morning Brew, Barron’s, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Bloomberg and Bloomberg Business Week, Yahoo Finance, Business insider, Axios, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Bureau of Labor Statistics, The AP, Reuters, The Hustle, and the Independent. If you have questions, please call us at 203.458.5220, or email me, Liz Cook, at ecook@dwinvest.com. Thank you!
An adult weighing 165 pounds would have to eat 7,084 Hershey’s Kisses to die from chocolate. Despite my concerns about how this fact was determined, I am confident that I can stick to a limit of 7,083 Kisses. Just.
by diastole-admin | Mar 30, 2026 | Uncategorized
The war in Iran continues to dominate the news and the markets. Oil prices are higher, because the Strait of Hormuz remains mostly closed. The U.S. has lifted sanctions on Russian and Iranian oil in the hopes that oil prices will stabilize or even fall, but that resulted in Iran now earning more from its oil than it did before the war started. Meanwhile, the Houthis in Yemen have begun bombing Israel, potentially opening a second front in the Israeli war effort. American troops are heading to the theater of war, and U.S. saber-rattling about a ground invasion has people everywhere worried. In a related story, the maximum enlistment age for U.S. service people has just been raised from 35 to 42.
Stock prices are lower, with all three major indices down for a fifth-straight week. The Standard & Poor’s has fallen 7% this year so far, while the Dow Jones Industrials and Nasdaq Composite Index are both in corrections, having dropped by more than 10%. The energy sector is the sole bright spot in stocks. Still, as the Wall Street Journal points out, company-earnings forecasts have RISEN since the start of the war, and the AI boom is continuing with its almost bottomless hunger for microchips and data centers. Both influences should help slow the current drop in stock prices.
Bond prices are also falling – pushing yields higher. The ten-year Treasury Note is now yielding more than 4.4%, up from a recent low of 3.96% at the end of February.
Investment money has only so many places it can go, and with investors selling shares AND bonds, it seems like money is moving into cash at this point. Perhaps with so many conflicting signals coming out of the White House, a wait and see attitude makes sense. But we do not recommend abandoning your allocations to stocks and bonds, since historically markets will recover more quickly than expected, and those on the sidelines may well miss the move.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is now predicting that U.S. inflation will spike to 4.2% this year due to the war and energy prices. Prior to the war, the OECD was predicting 2.8%. Brent crude, the international standard, has jumped 59% in price this month – more than it rose in the 1990 Gulf War. Fuel surcharges are already being added to airline tickets and cruise packages, and standard mortgage rates have climbed to 6.64%
With the U.S. debt approaching $39 trillion dollars, one wonders why the world continues to buy Treasurys. Yale economist Martha Gimbel compared the Treasury market to a Hallmark movie: the big city developer will seem like an acceptable boyfriend only until our heroine meets the lovable small-town veterinarian. In other words, Treasurys will continue to dominate only until an attractive substitute is found.
Meta (parent company of Facebook) and YouTube (where you can learn to knit while singing along to your favorite oldies) were both found guilty of negligence in the design of their products – causing harm to children. And in a related story, Mark Zuckerberg is building a personal AI agent to help him better perform as Meta’s chief executive. So first, a qualified yay, since a bot may do less harm in this situation than Zuckerberg has done, and second, I bet Zuckerberg’s personal AI won’t allow endless doom scrolling, deepfakes of children, and angry faces from his competitors.
There is random talk about capping Social Security benefits at $100,000 per year. This move would extend the life of the Social Security trust fund by seven years.
Remember the halcyon days of the pandemic when changing jobs was often accompanied by a big raise in salary? (Other than that, of course, it was a terrible time.) Nowadays 40% of white-collar workers who changed jobs at the end of 2025 took salary CUTS. Why change jobs at all? Perhaps to avoid being laid off. March’s jobs report is due to be released this coming Friday. In February we saw a loss of 92,000 jobs.
An asteroid the size of a house passed Earth last week, along with four others which created fireballs in the sky visible to the naked eye. Worried about an asteroid hitting YOUR house? You can track activity in the sky with NASA’s Asteroid Watch. (https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroid-watch/)
For the week ending on March 27th, the S&P 500 finished at 6,386, The Dow at 45,166, and the Nasdaq at 20,948. The yield on the ten-year Treasury Note closed the week at 4.44%. U.S. crude oil costs $101.05 per barrel today, while Brent crude costs $114.31 per barrel. The bid for New York gold is approximately $4,550.50 per ounce, and one Euro is worth $1.15.
Elizabeth E. Cook
Partner, Diastole Wealth Management
News and information presented here was gathered from sources believed, but not guaranteed, to be reliable, including (but not limited to) Morning Brew, Barron’s, The Wall Street Journal, Yahoo Finance, Axios, Forbes, The Washington Post, CNBC, MSNOW, Fortune, The Week, Bloomberg and Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Gallup, The Hustle, CNN, Reuters, USA Today, and the AP. If you have questions, please call Diastole at 203.458.5220, or write to me, Liz Cook, at ecook@dwinvest.com. Thank you for reading!
According to Nestle, 12 tons of KitKat candy bars were stolen as they were trucked between Italy and Poland. That’s 413,793 KitKats in total. One must ask, was marijuana just decriminalized in that part of Europe?
