popping (GOOGL) shares. Amazon is also investing a further $25 billion. As part of the deal, (GOOGL) is selling 5 gigawatts of compute capacity to Anthropic in another circular chips for equity deal. Buy (GOOGL) and (AMZN) on dips and avoid the Anthropic IPO.

Roughly 20 million barrels a day of oil supply are bottled up in the Strait of Hormuz, equivalent to 20% of global demand. The current disruption has drawn roughly 500 million barrels from global stockpiles, which could hit a billion barrels by June. Brent crude oil futures are back above $100 a barrel, but the market seems strangely sanguine, especially in longer-dated futures, with prices for 2027 up 17% compared with 43% for front-month contracts. Hedge Funds are making fortunes buying far months futures contracts at $60 a barrel and selling front month at $100.

The car-rental company Avis Budget Group Inc.'s (CAR) stock cratered, wiping out all but a sliver of its 600% meme gains over the previous month, in just two days with no clear cause. The sharp rise was a classic short squeeze, in which investors who'd sold borrowed Avis shares started racing to close out those positions by buying them back, but the sudden reversal is much less clear. Avis announced that it would report its first-quarter earnings on April 29, ahead of an expected early-to-mid May date, which ignited speculation that Avis was planning to raise money by selling stock, turbocharging the selloff.

Intel Rockets 22%, on a spectacular earnings report, and is up 120% so far this year. Given up for dead as recently as a year ago, the company revived on the unlimited demand for AI chips. $1 billion in revenue was lost because the company could not deliver on all its orders, and demand is so great. A big part of the beat came from inventories once thought obsolete, which customers bought anyway, they were so desperate for compute. PC capacity is being shifted over to AI production. At 100X earnings (INTC) is now a strong avoid. The stock is already priced for a comeback that hasn’t finished yet.

down to 48.9, no doubt due to soaring gasoline and food prices. Twelve-month inflation expectations increase sharply. The Iran War has disrupted shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, boosting the price of oil and ultimately the cost of gasoline ⁠and diesel. Prices for other commodities, including fertilizers, petrochemicals, and aluminum, which will soon impact consumers, have also surged.