The Rally Nobody Believes In | Macro Mondays: April 27, 2026

0:00Andreas Steno Larsen:Spring is here, New York City is bustling, and I just finished a clean of my apartment this past weekend. And boy, did it feel great. You know what also feels great? One dashboard that gets your entire financial life organized. No more clutter, no more mess, no more scattered logins. Just accounts, investments, property, and more, all in one place. Get your first year of Monarch for half off just$50 with promo code REALVISION. Indeed, the Monarch app has helped me visualize my cash flow and helps me see where my money's moving. Not only that, I'm able to view my investments from various camps and how they're stacking up against the S &P 500.

0:37Andreas Steno Larsen:But my favorite feature is the AI Weekly Recap that sends me alerts on spending spikes, net worth shifts and even upcoming expenses. Trust me, your finances will finally feel clean when you join Monarch. Use Real Vision at Marnach.com to get your first half year off at just$50. That's 50 % off your first year at Marnach.com with code Real Vision. New week.

1:07Andreas Steno Larsen:Big moves. You ready?

1:21Andreas Steno Larsen:to inflation every chart every trend get the story get the setup from the open to the end they try to be as actionable and as honest as possible but keep in mind that their predictions might be sometimes maybe good sometimes maybe shit sometimes maybe shit shit shit shit shit Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. Summertime is maybe good, summertime is maybe shit. It's Macro Mondays, big picture. Clear place, stocks, bonds, FX, crypto on the way. Get context, strategy right now on your screen. Macro Mondays, level up your week, oh yeah.

2:08Mikkel Rosenvold:Hello out there, welcome to Real Vision, welcome to Macro Mondays. My name is Mikkel Osenvall. I'm your usual host every Monday here. And as usual, I'm joined by you, Andreas. Welcome to the show.

2:20Andreas Steno Larsen:Thanks, Mikkel. Good to see you with these colored curtains behind you. I know that studio.

2:26Mikkel Rosenvold:You do, yeah. It is quite a well-named studio in Copenhagen. So for Danish people, we might recognize it. But anyway, here we go. Very, very exciting week ahead. We have some very interesting stuff to talk about, Andreas. Obviously, the situation in the Strait of Hormuz, even though we are getting sick of that. We have to touch upon it a little bit, but also looking at the growth outlook and the ramifications for markets and how market participants are navigating that particularly. We'll try and take a little bit of a dive into that today and then point some paths also to our other publications this week.

3:06Mikkel Rosenvold:Remember, this is our weekly free show where we give a sneak peek into the research and the publications that we do on Real Vision. We have lots of other content on the Real Vision platform, especially if you're a pro member. Tomorrow, Andreas, you and I host our monthly Macro Meets Micro. And this is where our portfolio update and actionable trade ideas are explained and really went through. And we have something new on that. I just wanted to show real quickly here if I can get the screen share up and running here. So we obviously do these monthly MicroMese Micro shows. We post every week. Every Friday, we post a portfolio update in article form.

3:48Mikkel Rosenvold:But now you can also track our portfolio live on the Real Vision Pro platform. So you need to click on the Pro icon in the left. Click on Contributor Position since ours will come up. It's the first one that's been implemented on site here. And it's a really great tool to see what suggestions that we have currently. I'm trying to scroll to show you what's in there without actually showing you what's in there. So hopefully I didn't give away too much. But otherwise, do check out Real Vision Pro for full access to our recommendations. Been doing quite okay so far, Andreas, the portfolio in a very, very volatile year here.

4:21Mikkel Rosenvold:So that's something to consider. Also, I forgot to mention that on Wednesday, we have two excellent shows. I'll be hosting Malik and Bengali to get an update on all markets. And then Raul and Julian's bi-monthly shooting the shit where they discuss charts and ideas that are at the top of their mind, essentially. So a very, very brief conversation or a very frank conversation there. And then obviously to complement that, we have our usual reports coming out. So lots of great content on the Real Vision platform. We will dive a little bit more into some of the stuff that we will discuss in the macro meets macro a bit later, Andreas.

4:54Mikkel Rosenvold:But I want to get started with some of the laughs of the week here. And I wanted to start with something that I sent you yesterday. And this is a very good representation of the state of X at the moment. I know you brought along something as well, Andreas. So I saw this tweet last night from a random profile. It said that the Norwegian and Danish royal yachts have set sea heading for Stockholm. And if you know a little bit about Scandinavian history, we've had our fights between Denmark, Norway and Sweden. so obviously there's a layer of are they going to do something here what are these royal families doing and obviously the truth here is addressed to the Swedish king Carl Gustav he turns 80 I think on Thursday congratulations to him nothing to this but this vague doom posting is just everywhere on X at the moment royal experts at Hyden Alert no not at all

5:53Andreas Steno Larsen:this might admittedly be a joke but it's very well hidden in case and you know this this vague hysteria is everywhere on X so it's kind of sad by the way let me say that to the audience here if you don't know a lot about Carl Gustav the king of Sweden please google him he's he's a pretty colorful and secure profile he's known as the stripper king basically so I don't think I've said too much then.

6:23Mikkel Rosenvold:Great character. Turned to 80 this week. So, so big congratulations to him and our friends over in Sweden. Now that we've insulted their king, let's move on, Andreas, to another, another laugh of the week. I put it on the laugh of the week. So if it is a joke, fair enough. And this is, we've been discussing this a lot, Andreas, because you and I spend a lot of time on X and other platforms. And this is something that in my mind sets aside our platform on Real Vision from X because on X...

6:48Andreas Steno Larsen:Spring is here, New York City is bustling, and I just finished to clean up my apartment this past weekend, and boy, did it feel great. You know what also feels great? One dashboard that gets your entire financial life organized. No more clutter, no more mess, no more scattered logins. Just accounts, investments, property, and more, all in one place. Get your first year of Monarch for half off just$50 with promo code Real Vision. Indeed, the Monarch app has helped me visualize my cash flow and helps me see where my money's moving. Not only that, I'm able to view my investments from various camps and how they're stacking up against the S &P 500.

7:25Andreas Steno Larsen:But my favorite feature is the AI Weekly Recap that sends me alerts on spending spikes, net worth shifts, and even upcoming expenses. Trust me, your finances will finally feel clean when you join Monarch. Use realvision at monarch.com to get your first half year off at just$50. That's 50 % off your first year at Marnart.com with code REALEVISION.

7:52Mikkel Rosenvold:It's very, very hard to find something that isn't AI slop these days. You sent me this chart, Andreas, of the use of not just a something, it's a this thing. The usage of that phrase is skyrocketed, obviously due to AI. It is one of the most significant markers of it. And it's killing X, in my opinion, Andreas. What do you think?

8:21Andreas Steno Larsen:So, by the way, do notice here that it is a measure of the use of this phrase in company documents in the US. So basically quarterly reports and what have you. I've been a part of writing some of the content for Nordea's old quarterly report, one of the big banks in Europe. And we spent countless hours doing that without anyone reading it, I guess. So I'm actually a fan of letting AI write all of those reports. I'm especially a fan of letting AI write stuff that nobody reads, which holds true for a lot of documents, especially in big companies. but please if you actually intend on something being read by others do at least attempt to write the prompt yourself at the very least I've stopped counting the number of takes I've seen on the straighter for moose, helium sulfur, all sorts of like geopolitical commodity related stuff from accounts clearly not in the know And admittedly, I've been partially guilty of doing it once in a while, but I've actually, you know, I've told myself to stop it now.

9:37Andreas Steno Larsen:I mean, stop using it unless you use it for something fruitful. Yeah, that's basically it.

9:44Mikkel Rosenvold:So a quick break in your regular programming. If you're serious about your future, grab my free report called Prepare for 2030. I think you've got five years to make as much money as possible. and this guide will help you navigate what's coming. The link is in the description. Download it now. You could use it to correct the language or whatever. This is not our first language, so I use it for that as well to be completely transparent. And to do some of your base research, et cetera, absolutely. It's great for that. But for writing takes, for putting concise analysis out there, no, it's not worth it.

10:19Mikkel Rosenvold:And that's where we try to go with a lot of the content on Real Vision, especially with things that we publish. So, Andreas, maybe sometimes it makes me want to join this club, the crusade against data centers. We have a lot of laughs of this week. Andreas, Angler residents removed local council members and are now aiming to recall the mayor in Festus, Montana, I think it is. It's a small town in America where a big data center is planned. So, Andreas, obviously a big contrast to all the reports we're getting from MAC7 companies on Wednesday. they're probably going to show great growth hopefully even stronger growth than last year in their cloud services and in almost CapEx but this one struck me a little bit because at what point do we begin to get backlash at this so to be honest Mikkel this problem feels very familiar

11:11Andreas Steno Larsen:you know we're a small country we have loads of wind turbines for the size of our country also loads of solar and every time you put up a wind turbine or a solar park, you have this issue. So I'm actually pleased to see that this issue is very much present in the US as well because I sometimes get the impression that's not. And this is obviously one of the things that you need to deal with when you're building out data centers. Also, when you're building out the grid in conjunction with that because this particular story from Festus, as far as I'm concerned, one of our big portfolio positions Bloom Energy is supposed to deliver the exact decentralized electricity to that data center.

11:54Andreas Steno Larsen:So, I mean, it is, of course, important also when you invest to consider these things, because I'll perfectly admit to that. I probably wouldn't accept living close to a data center either. No, I'll be honest about that. So there's a whole layer of logistics and, you know, an infrastructural discussion that we need to solve here. and on the next page uh which is a nice little teaser for our shelves tomorrow i'll spend a lot of time uh you know digesting what we've seen in the energy space both of course from the strait of the moose but also from some of these quote-unquote newer uh contributions to the electricity grid first of all nuclear nuclear it's not new but it's it's kind of seeing its renaissance in a sense.

12:42Andreas Steno Larsen:And then we have fuel cells, for example, Bloom Energy, as I mentioned, which has been on an absolute tier because it's one of the few technologies that you can use in a decentralized way. You don't need to connect to the grid. You can just run a fuel cell locally and not care about whether the grid is about to overload or such things. And the big question now is whether, you know, nuclear was kind of the technology of choice for Scott Besant and his team. Fuel cells have so far been the technology of choice for executives taking a decision on ground where they don't want to be too sensitive to the electrical grid.

13:24Andreas Steno Larsen:But what about next year and the year after? I mean, we still have a load that we need to be able to cater for. And is solar in the next trade maybe? Is it fossil fuels again? What's the next trade here? We'll spend a lot of time discussing that tomorrow.

13:40Mikkel Rosenvold:It's going to be really interesting, Andreas. Okay, let's zoom out a little bit and take a look at the macro situation, Andreas. Before that, I completely forgot in the opening to mention our usual catchphrase and our disclaimer here. And that probably comes at a good point as we begin to dive into the macro world here, that we try to be as actionable and honest as possible, but our trade ideas and analysis might be. and summertime is maybe good,

14:05Andreas Steno Larsen:summertime is maybe shit.

14:09Mikkel Rosenvold:Absolutely, Andreas. So let's dive into it. And maybe, I know we're sick of it, but we have to start in Iran again, right? We had this week's, I mean, we had a complete shit show of the weekend, to be honest. No real negotiations taking place. Trump claiming that it's too expensive to fly to Pakistan to negotiate. Then this morning, like a clockwork, you have our, or early today, You have the Monday hopium package, as I like to call it. So you had, I think it was Axios who reported that Iran has staged a new peace offer, a new plan for peace. In my opinion, that's a big nothing burger. They've essentially offered a Greenland package where the actual issue at hand, the nuclear issue, is postponed to be dealt with at another time.

14:57Mikkel Rosenvold:And then you simply just reopen the strait. So that's just turning back time to before the war without solving the nuclear issue. I find it very hard to believe that Donald Trump is going to buy into that. But we are left in a situation, to put it very simply, where both parties believe they have the strategic patience. Both sides believe that they have more patience than the other part. And that leads to a situation where nothing is happening because neither party has any real incentive or any real pressure to actually engage in negotiations. And we're seeing a poor development in ships through the strait, at least officially, because we are also hearing reports of loads of Iranian shadow fleet ships sailing very, very close to the coastline, dribbling oil out to India, at least.

15:44Mikkel Rosenvold:So how do you view the situation, this stalemate, and how markets are reacting to it right now? So let me look at it this way.

15:54Andreas Steno Larsen:Both of the involved parties claim to have blocked the strait to begin with. So they obviously cannot publicly admit that oil is flowing at the same time. Neither of them can. Iran would never admit that some of the flows to the West or maybe even to China are leaving from Iraq or Saudi Arabia in case it happens. and the u.s would never admit to the iranian shadow fleet sailing along the coastline first the iranian then pakistani and then indian waters but i think both are happening to some extent to some extent i don't know the extent but to some extent and both parties have an incentive in lying about it to be honest yeah uh so it's it's one of the things that i've said continuously over the past month or so that i think the flow is slightly better than what's being reported And if you look at the so-called oil on water measure, we have it on the screens in a second here.

16:56Andreas Steno Larsen:We also entered this conflict with quite a cushion. So if you look at the bottom right panel first on crude oil, I mean, even with the extreme drawdown that we've seen since March, basically, we're still you know in the higher end of what we typically see on water right so there is plenty of oil and water some of it is stuck in in the region but it's it's not like we have an immediate issue when it comes to crude the immediate issue is more of a product thing look at jet fuel for example on the top left panel there we're starting to deplete the floating storage is at a pace that is not comfortable so there are some niches that are under severe pressure already but the overall picture is that we'll probably be able to stomach this for longer than most people have thought and therefore I'm kind of in your camp now even though I've been wrong more than a few times during this four I mean it's been very difficult to call the shots that I think the US is pretty okay with the situation as it is, sadly.

18:15Andreas Steno Larsen:And one example of it, just over this weekend, I think it's on page 11, Miguel, we actually had negative net gas prices in parts of Texas. And please do remember that the net gas market is very regionalized. There's not one global infrastructure here. It has become more global after the Russian invasion of Ukraine due to a larger build-out of LNG infrastructure, both on the receiving end and on the exporting end. But still, in a situation where we currently have a very tight energy market, you can see negative NatGas prices in parts of the US. And overall, if you look at the input basket for necessities, so everything from net gas, thereby fertilizers, electricity, oil products, etc., we are so far from the price spike that we saw in 2022, even in euro.

19:17Andreas Steno Larsen:We're so, so far from that. and the war in 2022 cornered a lot less barrels of oil a day than the current crisis. So it's quite amazing that a notionally much smaller crisis in 2022 had a much larger impact than a much larger crisis, at least on paper this time. So something is different and I've basically spent my entire weekend writing up the thesis on why that is and you can read that on real vision absolutely okay andreas so

19:54Mikkel Rosenvold:so both a gloomy outlook that this could take a while neither sign has any intention really or incentive at least to to uh to push for for into this conflict uh at the same time it's not the

20:06Andreas Steno Larsen:end of the world that's what you're saying but so so that would you say one thing miko because um it's also something to keep in mind every time we have these big geopolitical events right I think there's a discrepancy between the geopolitical risk and the impact of the geopolitical risk over time in markets, if you know what I mean. So the geopolitical risk is intact, but the impact on markets from a rate of change perspective is fading. so when I said yeah around the first week of April that we would see a big rebound and when I said two weeks ago that I considered the crisis to be over I still stick to those words because from a market perspective that's been 100 % spot on even though the optics of it look a little weird and or wrong to be honest when I said that the crisis was over but I mean it from a market perspective that we've moved on as long as of course cannot drag on forever, but as long as there's perceived progress and they're talking to each other, et cetera, I don't think anyone's really worried right now, which is kind of odd, right?

21:16Mikkel Rosenvold:Which is really odd, considering that they're not even meeting yet, but there's a feeling that this can be done rather quickly. There's a feeling that neither side has any interest in escalating things as well. We've heard that from the US administration. They're not even talking about that, and that is a big step forward from three weeks ago. So absolutely, Andreas. So I just want to pull up this chart because it also shows in the advisor sentiment. This is one of the charts I really love. We've seen a very, very clear shift over the past few weeks. So have advisors adapted to this and is this warranted?

21:57Andreas Steno Larsen:So first of all, I think the first conclusion here is that through February and March, both in the run-up to the Iran war, but also during the first, say, four or five weeks of the war, every advisor more or less panic. Absolutely. Or at least most of them did. So they started turning bearish. They probably sold parts of their clients' portfolios, etc. And they turned bearish during that first window where geopolitical risk is actually impactful on markets. But they've been very slow to recover their bullishness despite the market going up. And remember, across the board, We are at all-time highs.

22:34Andreas Steno Larsen:So the dark blue here should be at all-time highs if the two were connected, right? But they're obviously not. So another way of showing it is to just map market returns versus investor sentiment on page 13. And I don't think I've ever seen the kind of disconnect that I've seen, say, over the past 12 months or so. And it's been, you know, accelerating that disconnect between 1st of March and now. So we have the market going up and the overall sentiment from a momentum perspective going down. We also see it in the consumer sentiment, for example. It is at basically at all-time lows while markets are going up.

23:14Andreas Steno Larsen:It's very, very rare to see this disconnect. And the way I see it is that this increases the probability of even stronger returns because it means that a lot of people haven't participated in this rally. and if you look at it I'd like to show page 14 as well because I just saw this from one of the Goldman pieces out earlier so thank you to Goldman for showing their numbers from their prime book it's slightly small here but what it shows on the left hand side is the gross leverage of the financial system in light blue and it's been coming down throughout this crisis basically meaning that funds that can use leverage but also of course family offices etc they've used less leverage through this, meaning that they've probably net sold.

24:04Andreas Steno Larsen:And if you look at the long short ratio, it's also come down on the right hand side here. And it's still very low in a historical context. So it's not like the market is overly optimistic. It's not like the market is overly long. And the leverage, especially in net terms, has come down a lot. But also in gross terms over the course of the past eight weeks or so.