Don’t look now, but bitcoin is booming again.

Even for an asset that’s constantly on a rollercoaster ride, the past few months have been particularly turbulent for bitcoin. After President Trump’s electoral victory, the crypto king skyrocketed to a record high of nearly $110,000. But as Trump’s various olive branches to the industry became overshadowed by geopolitical-shifting tariffs, bitcoin dropped sharply—along with the stock market and other cryptocurrencies.

But the cryptocurrency has begun to rebound over the past week, jumping 10.79%. This morning, bitcoin broke above $94,0000, its highest level since March. That marks a roughly 22% increase from the asset’s low this month, and the first time this year bitcoin is in positive territory.

Meanwhile, the S&P 500 is up just 0.75% over the past week, and the dollar has fallen to a roughly three-year low.

Digital gold

Investors hoping that the US and China can work out a trade deal helped drive the asset up today. Trump’s reassurance that he was not firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell—for now—boosted both the wider market and bitcoin as well.

But investors are also flocking to bitcoin for the same reason they are hoarding gold like leprechauns: Many see bitcoin as a safe haven from geopolitical uncertainty.

Investors poured $936.43 million into bitcoin exchange-traded funds on Tuesday, the highest inflows in a single day since January 17—the same day the market tanked on Trump’s threats to oust Powell.

“Today, as more corporations and institutions are buying bitcoin, and more governments are holding it as a strategic reserve, the ‘hedge asset’ narrative is gaining traction. Investors are increasingly treating it like digital gold. The result is a lower beta to equities in down periods,” wrote Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan in a note last week.

But is bitcoin really digital gold? After all, gold is known as a safe haven because it's considered a stable, secure store of value that isn’t correlated to other financial markets. “Bitcoin” and “stability” aren’t often found in the same sentence.

After Trump’s election, bitcoin acted more like a tech stock than gold. Now, however, bitcoin has been “decoupling” from stocks—and even other cryptocurrencies. So maybe the true believers were right.

Maybe, just maybe, bitcoin is a hedge after all.—LB

🟢 What’s up

• Intel surged 5.54% on reports that the chipmaker plans to cut 20% of its workforce.
• Oklo gained 8.60% after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced he’s stepping down as chairman of the board of the nuclear power startup.
• Duolingo popped 10.01% after Morgan Stanley initiated coverage of the language learning company, calling it a “best-in-class consumer internet asset.”
• Cava climbed 6.29% due to an upgrade from analysts at Bernstein, who think the bowl slop stock will not only survive but thrive in an economic downturn.
• Amphenol rose 8.21% thanks to impressive earnings for the high-speed cable company, coupled with a solid fiscal outlook.
• Vertiv Holdings jumped 8.60% after the data center company posted an impressive quarterly profit and raised its fiscal forecast.
• SAP rose 7.47% following the software stock’s strong profit performance last quarter.
• Novavax soared 19.52% on the news that the FDA has asked for more clinical data about its Covid vaccine.

What’s down

• Enphase Energy plunged 15.65% thanks to a big miss on both the top and bottom lines for the solar tech stock.
• Going down: Elevator manufacturer Otis Worldwide fell 6.64% on an earnings miss thanks to fewer orders from Chinese customers.
• Online learning platform Chubb fell 2.17% after announcing a 38% decline in net income last quarter.
• Baker Hughes may have beaten profit forecasts last quarter, but the oilfield operator’s revenue miss sent shares tumbling 6.44%.
• Bristol Myers Squibb lost 2.59% after the pharma giant announced its schizophrenia drug Cobenfy performed poorly in Phase 3 trials.

2024 was a very good year for the top 0.00001%.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the 19 wealthiest households in America—think Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Jeff Bezos, etc—saw their wealth increase by $1 trillion last year alone, the biggest one-year increase ever. The country’s fabulously wealthy benefited from a 24% return for the S&P 500 in 2023, followed by 23% in 2024, a one-two punch that sent the size of their wallets into the stratosphere.

Here’s a bit more about how the $148 trillion in total US household wealth in 2024 broke down:

• The richest 1% of households own 31% of US wealth
• The wealthiest 10% of households account for 67% of US wealth
• The bottom 50% of households own just 3% of US wealth

Tesla jumped 5.37% today after Elon Musk proclaimed that he would be spending "significantly" less time at DOGE starting next month. But investors are making a big bet on blind faith: The EV company’s actual earnings numbers were dismal. Tesla’s net income plunged 71% year over year, while automotive revenue dropped 20%. Time for Tesla to start self-driving its stock upward.

• EPS: Adjusted $0.27 per share, below the $0.39 projected by analysts
• Revenue: $19.34 billion, under the $21.11 billion forecast

Boeing flew 6.06% higher today—now there’s a statement you’re probably not used to reading. The beleaguered plane manufacturer has begun to crawl out of its dysfunction-driven hole. The company reported its airplane deliveries rose 60% year over year, and executives said the company was planning to resell aircraft originally made for China before the nation announced it will stop buying Boeing planes.

• EPS: $0.49 cents adjusted, higher than the $1.29 loss projected
• Revenue: $19.5 billion, above expectations of $19.45 billion

Capital One Financial rose 3.56% today after the bank reported a better than expected first quarter. Net interest income jumped 7% to hit $8 billion, but the bottom line was mainly buoyed by profits from interest payments on credit card debt—its credit card business comprises about half of its loan portfolio. Shares have risen steadily after federal regulators approved its merger with Discover last Friday.—LB

• EPS: $4.06 adjusted, beating analyst expectations of $3.64 per share
• Revenue: $10 billion, slightly under analyst predictions of $10.1 billion

• What the heck just happened? Blame a short squeeze for the wild ride the market’s been on lately.
• Eli Lilly launched not one, but four lawsuits against companies selling the compound versions of Zepbound and Mounjaro.
• Big tech could use big buybacks to bolster its stocks.
• That’s fine: Apple received a $570 million fine while Meta got slapped with a $320 million bill for breaking the EU’s Digital Markets Act.
• Slate Auto, a Jeff Bezos-backed startup, is teasing its new $25,000 EV.
• High interest rates are hitting mortgages hard, while crushing demand.
• Starbase,TX: Voters in the Lone Star State will decide if a strip of unincorporated territory in the Rio Grande Valley should be handed over to Elon Musk and SpaceX.

We’ve got a handful of reports tomorrow, each detailing a different part of the economy:

Durable goods orders provides insight into the state of the manufacturing industry, existing home sales gives us some details on the housing market, and initial jobless claims covers the labor market.

As for earnings, the hits don’t stop coming: American Airlines, SK Hynix, P&G, T-Mobile US, Merck, PepsiCo, Gilead Sciences, Union Pacific, Comcast, Keurig Dr Pepper, Sanofi, Fiserv, Bristol-Myers Squibb, BNP Paribas, Digital Realty Trust, Freeport-McMoRan, Nasdaq, L3Harris Technologies, PG&E, Valero Energy, Nokia, and Dow.

We’ll also hear from two tech giants facing some issues these days:

After the close

• Alphabet has been declared a monopoly for the second time in under a year. Analysts will have plenty of questions about the repercussions of the most recent ruling, but don’t expect a breakup of Google’s many businesses just yet. The best business unit of them all these days is YouTube, which has seen a stunning surge in popularity lately that the search company will likely try to capitalize on, while it continues to tinker with its Gemini AI model. Consensus: $2.02 EPS, $89.25 billion in revenue.
• Intel seems like a bit of an also-ran in the AI race these days, with shares down over 40% in the last 12 months. But to bulls, that just means the stock is cheap, while the company itself has plenty of opportunities for growth ahead, including partnerships with Nvidia and TSMC. Don’t forget that Intel’s status as a dark horse lets it slip below the tariff radar—the domestic chip producer dodged the latest round of restrictions that hit Nvidia and AMD. Shareholders will be hoping to hear more good news ahead. Consensus: $0.09 EPS, $12.31 billion in revenue.