“The most dangerous thing is to buy something at the peak of its popularity. At that point, all favourable facts and opinions are already factored into its price and no new buyers are left to emerge” ― Howard Marks

1. Tesla’s Quarterly Deliveries Fall for First Time Since 2020 — Elon Musk’s electric-vehicle maker delivered 386,810 vehicles globally in the first three months of 2024, down 8.5% from a year earlier. It was the company’s lowest quarterly performance since the third quarter of 2022. The result was enough for Tesla to reclaim the title from China’s BYD as the world’s top EV seller on a quarterly basis. Yet, it is a troubling sign for the broader electric-vehicle market, where growth is slowing and automakers including Ford Motor and General Motors are recalibrating investment plans after finding consumers to be less enthusiastic about going electric than the companies had expected.
2. Powell Still Sees Room for the Fed to Cut Rates This Year — Powell pointed to signs that labor-market conditions are less tight than they have been in recent years, a view that has eased concerns that paychecks and prices might rise in tandem. Meanwhile, signs of firmer-than-expected inflation in January and February haven’t shaken the Fed’s stance that price growth will continue to slow down despite some bumps, Powell said at a conference in Stanford, Calif. Fed officials raised rates rapidly over the past two years to address a surge in inflation, which hit a 40-year high. They have held their benchmark short-term rate in a range between 5.25% and 5.5% since July.
Measures of underlying inflation have cooled notably since the middle of 2023. That has allowed the Fed to shift its attention away from whether to keep raising rates and toward when to lower rates from a level that some officials thought was necessary to defend against inflation becoming stubbornly elevated.
3. Oil Is Hitting Its Highest Level in Months — The rally in crude picked up speed this week after an Israeli strike on an Iranian diplomatic building fanned worries of a broader regional war. Undergirding prices: a relative lack of crude in global markets thanks to production cuts from OPEC and its allies. Brent crude futures, the benchmark, have climbed 18% in 2024 to exceed $90 a barrel for the first time since October. That is feeding into gasoline, with average national prices measured by AAA up 15% this year at $3.57 a gallon. Gasoline supplies are a possible pinch point ahead of the busy summer driving season. Inventories in the U.S. are 3% below the recent average for this time of year, close to the lowest for this time of year in the past five years.
4. U.S. creates 303,000 jobs in March. Much bigger increase than expected — The U.S. created a larger-than-expected 303,000 new jobs in March and signaled the economy is still expanding at a solid pace, but the report won’t make it any easier for the Federal Reserve to decide when to cut interest rates. The increase in new jobs was the biggest since May 2023. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had forecast a 200,000 increase in new jobs last month.

The week ahead — Economic data from Econoday.com: