The Dividend Cafe - Thursday - April 30, 2026

Episode Date: April 30, 2026

Brian Szytel reviews a strong Thursday market rebound, with the Dow up 850 points and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq up about 1%, driven mainly by earnings, including a “Mag Seven” report that lifted the world’s largest search engine about 9% (a roughly $400B one-day market-cap gain). Economic data were supportive: initial jobless claims printed 189 versus 214 expected, personal spending was in line, personal income beat expectations, and March PCE inflation matched forecasts at 3.5% (3.2% ex-energy). GDP came in at 2.0% versus 2.3% estimated, with expectations for revisions and a Q1 composition heavily driven by equipment spending and IP investment tied to data centers and AI. He discusses the Fed holding rates, the politicization around Powell, and Kevin Walsh beginning as Powell’s term ends May 15. 00:00 Market Rally Recap 00:19 Big Tech Earnings Surge 00:59 Jobs and Inflation Data 02:08 GDP Print and Revisions 02:46 Fed Leadership and Politics 04:31 Powell Policy Critique 05:24 What Drove Q1 GDP 06:34 Closing and Weekend Signoff Links mentioned in this episode: DividendCafe.com TheBahnsenGroup.com

Welcome to the Dividing Cafe weekly market commentary focused on dividends in your portfolio and dividends in your understanding of economic life. Welcome to Dividend Cafe. This is Brian Sightel, your host this evening here on Thursday. And a nice update overall in the market, we've had some weakness earlier on in the week, but today was fairly robust. Dow was up 850 points, S&P was up over a percent, and NASDAQ was up just at 1%. So rally across the board. Some of the Mag 7 reporters came out today. And of the four that I mentioned yesterday, four were down and one was up pretty big.

So the largest search engine in the world was up something like 9%. That's a $400 billion market cap gain in one day. And I'd just like to point out that would be about the size of McDonald's and Pepsi combined. So $400 billion is nothing to sneeze at. Obviously, it's a $4.5 trillion market cap. But still, that's just phenomenal. and the results really did speak for themselves. So you had that going on in markets.

You had a lot of other, I'll use the word cross currents again like I did yesterday, going on throughout the earnings landscape that had been largely pretty positive. So today's move was more or less about earnings and it was about the economic numbers that came out because we got also an initial jobless number that was the lowest that we've seen since 1969. That was before I was born. But I've heard it was a great year. I think we landed on the moon, as they say,

But we got a 189 print for the week. We were expecting a 214. So that's a low number. It's hard to discount and throw labor out the window. There's still positive things going on in the economy. That's what I talked about yesterday. There's this tug of war between volatility and energy and Middle East and Fed policy and these things. And then just some positive fundamentals that are happening.

A couple of other things real quick. I'm going to touch on the economic side, at least. You had personal spending that was in line and you have personal income that was double. expectation to the better. So that's a good thing, people making more and spending the same. And then you had the PCE numbers that were also totally in line with expectations, 3.5% for March. And if you moved out energy, which has obviously been more volatile, you get to a 3.2 number. So there you go across the board. Lastly, David has written about this in today's recap, but GDP came out at 2% versus a 2.3 estimate. And the reality on GDP is that

that all of 2025 was a real number, real GDP number of 2%. So I look at this as more of the same. Number one. And the number two, this is the first read of it. And so you're just going to get revisions as time goes on. If you remember, the fourth quarter started out. I think it was 1.9, then 1.4, and it ended up at about 0.5. So we're starting at 2.

Could go up, could go down on revisions. But I wrote about this a little yesterday, but David did a nice job extrapolating on it today inside of what's going on at the Fed. So we had the Fed meeting yesterday. The left rate's unchanged. I talked about the four dissenters already, first time since 92. But one of the things that really struck us was the role of the Fed chairperson as governor doesn't end until, it doesn't end at the same time as the chairperson's actual role does. So it goes on in advance of that. But historically, over the past 80 years, when a chairperson is in that seat and then gets replaced,

he's not going to, he or she is not going to stay on for the sake of it, just to be part of the new paradigm inside the Fed to just drive out the remainder of that governorship role. So that's what historically has happened. And unfortunately, Powell isn't able to really commit to that now because, as you recall, there was the DOJ investigation into the criminal, whether there was criminal behavior involved with the expenditure on the Fed building or not. Obviously, there wasn't. You can talk about whether they spent the money wisely or not fine. I don't know. Those things are expensive. And also, that's not criminal behavior. And if it was, I think there's someone else that happens to occupy the White House that's been a pretty on some other upgrades and some different things, too. A little bit of the pot calling the kettle black on that.

But aside from that, it's just a sad state because you had this sort of politicization. Politics get involved with trying to strong arm the Fed into certain policy decisions. And this is what has happened. And so Kevin Warsh will get sworn in. He should be able to start by the time Powell's term ends, which is May 15th. So first day for worse will be on May 16th, which is just around the corner. But we wanted to unpack that a little bit. And while we've been defending or defensive of Powell from having a criminal investigation launched at him in order to just lower interest rates,

we just really push back on that being the American way and that being even just right. That doesn't mean that he's done a perfect job. I think he's done a good job, but not perfect. And nobody can do a perfect job. He left rates at the zero bound far after the pandemic had already ended. that caused a lot of excesses in private equity, if you remember equity valuations, some of the real estate values literally doubled in a year. And then you had this 2022 where you had to play catch-up and take rates from zero to five and a quarter in one year. And so then you had the opposite

happened. You've had signature bank fail. You had stock market fall off 20, 30 percent. You had private credit start to get in issues. Private equity is just left for debt at this point. Real estate has been completely stagnant. Yeah, I think those two things are at the extreme, it is zero bound too long and then ratching it up in one year like that could have been more incremental on both of those things. So yes, we've been defensive of the criminal side, but not necessarily just that he did a perfect job. The question in there today was about the GDP number basically and to unpack it and I started doing that, but a 2% real GDP number isn't bad. It's not great. It's some ways the porridge is just right. It keeps the wheels turning on the economy in a positive way.

You may get some upward revisions here as we go through 2026. of what we're seeing in labor is turning and what we're seeing in earnings and some of the other metrics like consumer personal income today. Durable goods were really good yesterday. So there's a chance for that. But the one thing I'll say about this number on the GDP for Q1 was it was largely driven by just two things. It was equipment spending and IP investment. So that's great. But one was up 17% and one was up 13 and that was 75% of the 2% number we got. If you thought that if the OBB B Bill was broad-based and it was driving a lot of broad-based advanced KAPX to expand businesses. It really was just this sort of data center and AI-related story.

Now, you can say maybe that will take hold and you'll see it next quarter. I think that will be partially true, but a bit of a nuanced kind of Q1 read so far that we got out today. But that's what I've got for you today here on Thursday, and I appreciate you listening as always. Reach back with your questions. We'll get them answered as fast as we can. and if I don't speak to you, have a great weekend. Thanks again. The Bonson Group is a group of investment professionals registered with Hightower

Securities LLC, member FINRA and SIPC, and with Hightower Advisors, LLC, a registered investment advisor with the SEC. Securities are offered through Hightower Securities LLC. Advisory services are offered through Hightower Advisors LLC. This is not an offer to buy or sell securities. No investor process is free at risk. There is no guarantee that the investment process or investment opportunities referenced to Rian will be profitable.

past performance is not indicative of current or future performance and is not a guarantee. The investment opportunities referenced herein may not be suitable for all investors. All data and information referenced herein are from sources believed to be reliable. Any opinions, news, research, analyses, prices, or other information contained in this research is provided as general market commentary and does not constitute investment advice. The Bonsor Group in Hightower shall not in any way be liable for claims and make no, expressed, or implied, representations or warranties as to the accuracy or completeness of the data and other information, or for statements or errors contained in or emissions from the

obtained data and information referenced here in. The data and information are provided as of the date reference. Such data and information are subject to change without notice. This document was created for informational purposes only, the opinions expressed, are solely those of the Bonson Group and do not represent those of Hightower Advisors LLC or any of its affiliates. High Tower advisors do not provide tax or legal advice. This material was not intended or written to be used or presented to any entity as tax advice or tax information. Tax laws vary based on the client's individual circumstances and can change at any time without notice. Clients are urged to consult their tax or legal advisor for any related questions.