Best May Since 1990… Worst Setup Since 2001?

If May felt like a win, you can thank retail investors.

The S&P 500 surged 6.1% — its best May since 1990 — and it wasn’t the quants or suits behind the curtain doing the heavy lifting. Retail investors dumped a record $2 billion into stocks, single-handedly dragging the index uphill like Sisyphus on margin.

But here’s the tell: hedge funds sold $1.5 billion. Institutional investors offloaded $2 billion. Professional sentiment hasn’t just cooled — it’s standing in the shade, arms crossed, holding a sell ticket. In other words, the big boys are cashing out.

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Retail’s buying the rally, but everyone else is either selling or quietly buying something else. Metals are rising. Bitcoin’s moving. Foreign currencies are outperforming against the dollar.

And year-to-date?

This has not been a good year for U.S. stocks.

The S&P 500 is up a grand total of 0.5% — the third-worst start to any year since 2010.

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By comparison:

Gold: +25.3%
Silver: +14.2%
Bitcoin: +11.8%
1–3 Year U.S. Government Bonds: +2.1%
Euro: +8.9%
Swiss Franc: +9.7%
Japanese Yen: +9.6%

Call it a rally if you must — but it’s not the kind you want to retire on.

BlackRock Eyes the Masses

There’s no big surprise here, then. BlackRock is gearing up to bring more private-market products to individual investors outside the United States.

The world’s largest asset manager is planning a hiring spree and forming partnerships with digital investment platforms across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

The goal? Offer mom-and-pop investors access to the same opaque world of private equity and private credit that’s usually reserved for pension funds and endowments.

“We want more people in private markets,” said Fabio Osta, who leads BlackRock’s alternative efforts for wealthy clients in EMEA.

Translation: the gate is creaking open — but watch your step. Private markets don’t come with handrails. Or a quick exit if you need the liquidity.

The BlackRock holy grail would be cornering the $8.9 trillion in capital held currently in the U.S.’ 401(k) accounts – a big source of wealth, and one that’s relatively unconcerned with short-term market swings.

Hidden Stock Under $5 Holds Tech World Hostage

Tech monsters can no longer avoid doing business with this one company that trades for less than $5…

All of them are held “hostage” by the “Patent King” CEO’s brilliant business tactics.

And what’s even crazier…

Is that his tactics reach all the way to the public.

He intentionally set up his company’s stock under a secret trade name…

Did he fool you too?

Click here to see more.

Trump’s Trade Tangle, Today’s Tiff

The temporary “deal” Trump struck with Beijing in Switzerland is now little more than diplomatic dust. On Sunday, the president accused China of “totally violating” the terms, which, critically, were never codified in the first place.

Tensions are surging over access to semiconductors and rare earths, where Beijing appears to be playing the long game… and holding better cards. Defense Secretary Hegseth spent the weekend rattling sabers in Taipei.

Back home, legal challenges to Trump’s tariff regime are mounting. Federal judges are questioning whether many of the levies, including those first imposed in 2018, exceed executive authority and violate the separation of powers — specifically, the part where Congress makes the laws.

And yet, the show goes on.

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Trump has now threatened to double tariffs on steel and aluminum from 25% to 50%, effective June 4.

The European Union called the move “deeply regrettable,” and its trade chief, Maros Sefcovic, will meet U.S. Trade Rep. Jamieson Greer in Paris this week — while EU negotiators head to Washington for back-channel talks. The EU is preparing retaliatory measures and says it may accelerate their timeline if the U.S. follows through.

Markets took note. Tech bounced Monday — Nvidia led a 1.5% rally in chip stocks — but steel and aluminum names also soared, defying the threat of international backlash. The S&P ticked higher to start June.

Treasurys Take Another Hit

While stocks flinched and rebounded, Treasurys continued to moan. The long bond — already the worst performer of 2025 — got punished again Monday, with 30-year yields pressing against the 5% mark.

Blame renewed tariff fears, persistent deficits, and a data week that began with a thud. The ISM manufacturing index came in weaker than expected and remained in contraction territory (below 50). Even so, bond yields resumed climbing across the curve.

BlackRock warned this week that the U.S. fiscal outlook could send term premiums even higher if Congress adds trillions in new spending without a credible budget plan.

DoubleLine’s Jeffrey Gundlach, never shy about calling a turn, is either avoiding or shorting long-dated Treasurys outright. And he’s not alone. Pacific Investment Management, TCW Group, and others have joined the retreat to the short end of the curve, where at least you can earn something without signing up for 30 years of government dysfunction.

This rare divergence — rising 30-year yields while 2-, 5-, and 10-year yields fall — has only happened once in a full calendar year since 2001. It suggests a growing mistrust in America’s long-term fiscal trajectory.

Whispers are even floating around that the Treasury could scale back or suspend auctions of the 30-year bond altogether. That’s a far cry from a government that needs lower rates – and investors who ideally lock in those low rates for as long as possible.

Where This Leaves You

Multiple themes are converging to kick off June: retail enthusiasm, professional skepticism, a wounded dollar, a bond market rebellion, and a White House that believes every economic problem can be solved with a 50% tariff and a steel plant photo op.

But this isn’t 2019. It’s not even 2022. Interest rates continue to trend higher, now lower. Debt’s ballooning. And global capital — slowly but unmistakably — is diversifying away from the American center.

Real wealth is moving into things with scarcity, protection, or shorter duration. Private credit. Gold. Oil infrastructure. Bitcoin. Timberland. Nuclear. Think tangible, not theoretical.

Stay liquid. Stay alert. The conditions that caused markets to go from all-time highs to a bear market in just a few weeks haven’t gone away.

~ Addison

P.S. Grey Swan Live! returns Thursday at 11 a.m. ET.

This week: “The New Global Currency Question.” If the dollar’s losing altitude… what parachutes are left? We’re finalizing a special guest now. Stay tuned for more details…

Your thoughts? Please send them here: addison@greyswanfraternity.com

If May felt like a win, you can thank retail investors.

Turn Your Images On

Retail’s buying the rally, but everyone else is either selling or quietly buying something else. Metals are rising. Bitcoin’s moving. Foreign currencies are outperforming against the dollar.

And year-to-date?

This has not been a good year for U.S. stocks.

The S&P 500 is up a grand total of 0.5% — the third-worst start to any year since 2010.

Turn Your Images On

By comparison:

Gold: +25.3%
Silver: +14.2%
Bitcoin: +11.8%
1–3 Year U.S. Government Bonds: +2.1%
Euro: +8.9%
Swiss Franc: +9.7%
Japanese Yen: +9.6%

Call it a rally if you must — but it’s not the kind you want to retire on.

BlackRock Eyes the Masses

There’s no big surprise here, then. BlackRock is gearing up to bring more private-market products to individual investors outside the United States.

The world’s largest asset manager is planning a hiring spree and forming partnerships with digital investment platforms across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

The goal? Offer mom-and-pop investors access to the same opaque world of private equity and private credit that’s usually reserved for pension funds and endowments.

“We want more people in private markets,” said Fabio Osta, who leads BlackRock’s alternative efforts for wealthy clients in EMEA.

Translation: the gate is creaking open — but watch your step. Private markets don’t come with handrails. Or a quick exit if you need the liquidity.

Hidden Stock Under $5 Holds Tech World Hostage

Tech monsters can no longer avoid doing business with this one company that trades for less than $5…

All of them are held “hostage” by the “Patent King” CEO’s brilliant business tactics.

And what’s even crazier…

Is that his tactics reach all the way to the public.

He intentionally set up his company’s stock under a secret trade name…

Did he fool you too?

Click here to see more.

Trump’s Trade Tangle, Today’s Tiff

And yet, the show goes on.

Turn Your Images On

Trump has now threatened to double tariffs on steel and aluminum from 25% to 50%, effective June 4.

Treasurys Take Another Hit

BlackRock warned this week that the U.S. fiscal outlook could send term premiums even higher if Congress adds trillions in new spending without a credible budget plan.

Where This Leaves You

Real wealth is moving into things with scarcity, protection, or shorter duration. Private credit. Gold. Oil infrastructure. Bitcoin. Timberland. Nuclear. Think tangible, not theoretical.

Stay liquid. Stay alert. The conditions that caused markets to go from all-time highs to a bear market in just a few weeks haven’t gone away.

~ Addison

P.S. Grey Swan Live! returns Thursday at 11 a.m. ET.

This week: “The New Global Currency Question.” If the dollar’s losing altitude… what parachutes are left? We’re finalizing a special guest now. Stay tuned for more details…

Your thoughts? Please send them here: addison@greyswanfraternity.com

Trump and Powell are no buddies. They’ve been fighting over rate cuts all year—Trump demanding more, Powell holding back. Even after cutting twice, Trump called him “grossly incompetent” and said he’d “love to fire” him. The tension has been building for months.

And Trump now seems ready to install someone who shares his appetite for lower rates and easier money.

Trump has been dropping hints for weeks—saying on November 18, “I think I already know my choice,” and then doubling down last Sunday aboard Air Force One with, “I know who I am going to pick… we’ll be announcing it.”

He was referring to one Kevin Hassett, who—according to a recent Bloomberg report—has emerged as the overwhelming favorite to become the next Fed chair.

Here we sit — investors, analysts, retirees, accountants, even a few masochistic economists — gathered beneath the leafless monetary tree, rehearsing our lines as we wait for Jerome Powell to step onstage and tell us what the future means.

Spoiler: he can’t. But that does not stop us from waiting.

Tomorrow, he is expected to deliver the December rate cut. Polymarket odds sit at 96% for a dainty 25-point cut.

Trump, Navarro and Lutnick pine for 50 points.

And somewhere in the wings smiles Kevin Hassett — at 74% odds this morning, the presumed Powell successor — watching the last few snowflakes fall before his cue arrives.

With U.S. stocks trading at about 24 times forward earnings, plans for capital growth have to go off without a hitch. Given the billions of dollars in commitments by AI companies, financing to the hilt on debt, the most realistic outcome is a hitch.

On a valuation basis, global markets will likely show better returns than U.S. stocks in 2026.

America leads the world in innovation. A U.S. tech stock will naturally fetch a higher price than, say, a German brewery. But value matters, too.

As copper flowed into the United States, LME inventories thinned and backwardation steepened. Higher U.S. pricing, tariff protection, and lower political risk made American warehouses the most attractive destination for metal. Each new shipment strengthened the spread.

The arbitrage, once triggered, became self-reinforcing. Traders were not participating in theory; they were responding to the physical incentives in front of them.

The United States had quietly become the marginal buyer of the world’s most important industrial metal. China, long the gravitational center of global copper demand, found itself on the outside.

And Trump now seems ready to install someone who shares his appetite for lower rates and easier money.

He was referring to one Kevin Hassett, who—according to a recent Bloomberg report—has emerged as the overwhelming favorite to become the next Fed chair.

Spoiler: he can’t. But that does not stop us from waiting.

Tomorrow, he is expected to deliver the December rate cut. Polymarket odds sit at 96% for a dainty 25-point cut.

Trump, Navarro and Lutnick pine for 50 points.

And somewhere in the wings smiles Kevin Hassett — at 74% odds this morning, the presumed Powell successor — watching the last few snowflakes fall before his cue arrives.

On a valuation basis, global markets will likely show better returns than U.S. stocks in 2026.

America leads the world in innovation. A U.S. tech stock will naturally fetch a higher price than, say, a German brewery. But value matters, too.

The arbitrage, once triggered, became self-reinforcing. Traders were not participating in theory; they were responding to the physical incentives in front of them.

The United States had quietly become the marginal buyer of the world’s most important industrial metal. China, long the gravitational center of global copper demand, found itself on the outside.