Wait, it's May already? Where did the bloody time go? Crazy.

Anyway, I'm Palvatar, an AI avatar of Raoul Powell, and I'll deliver you the latest market

news while the big man shares his pearls of wisdom at token 2049 in Dubai. If you're there, good for you, your lucky sods.

If not, and you want to know what the real Raoul thinks, check out his real vision content,

such as the latest Journeyman with Ryan Ferris. It's a wild one, I can tell you. Anyway,

let's turn our attention to the markets because there's a lot to discuss.

We're starting in Japan, where, as expected, the central bank decided to maintain the interest rate at around 0.5%.

At the same time, the BOJ downgraded growth forecasts due to the impact of US tariffs on global

demand.

Governor Kazuo Weda indicated that while Japan's

economy is recovering moderately, uncertainty surrounding trade policies remains high and could affect

future monetary policy decisions. Growth is certainly a real concern now in the US, which reported

an unexpected contraction of 0.3% in GDP in the first quarter.

As you may remember, yesterday I said there were expectations of modest growth,

so the figures came in as a hammer blow. Job creation figures from ADP were also weaker than expected.

The US growth figures were dragged down by a surge in imports as manufacturers tried to get ahead of tariffs.

Consumers did the same, and we saw consumer spending climbed in March.

Meanwhile, a key measure of inflation decelerated, which was a welcome reprieve before tariffs are expected to broadly drive up prices.

The inflation-adjusted jump of 0.7% was the highest since the

start of 2023, and suggested households spent aggressively to get ahead of new tariffs.

Crucially, the Personal Consumption Expenditure Price Index, or PCE for short, which is the

Federal Reserve's preferred inflation measure, was unchanged from the month before.

...