Daily Brief 2026-04-15

by

Market Snapshot

  • S&P 500 – 6,967, +1.18% (Tuesday close). Nasdaq +1.96%, DJI +317 pts. Mood: recovery on hopes of Iran negotiations – Trump hinted that Tehran wants to talk – markets immediately read the situation correctly.
  • WTI oil – $90.92/bbl today, down from nearly $100 at the start of the week. When the US blockade was announced – oil surged. When the White House hinted at a second round of negotiations – it fell. About 8% in a few days. That’s the price of one Trump post.
  • Gold – $4,850, nearly unchanged. Not worried and doesn’t want to be – looking toward the next horizon level.
  • BTC – $74,255, -0.29%. Testing the $75,000 level for several days, hasn’t broken through, but isn’t falling either.
  • DXY – around 98.3, seventh consecutive declining session. Lowest level since late February, before the war began. The market believes the Iran crisis will resolve – and the dollar is no longer acting as an automatic safe-haven currency.

Lithuania and the Baltics

  • Defense budget 2026 – €4.79 billion, 5.38% of GDP. That’s 43% more than in 2025 and the largest defense sum Lithuania has allocated in its independence history. This number is not a political signal – it is a structural decision: the economy is reorienting toward defense as a permanent element.
  • Tax reform – The President signed amendments: progressive income tax system (20% up to 36 average wages, 25% from 36 to 60), insurer security contribution of 10% on premiums. An additional ~€500 million per year for the defense fund. One can debate the distribution, but the direction is clear.
  • Baltic prime ministers’ meeting – April 17 in Tallinn: Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia will discuss Rail Baltica progress and regional security. A routine format, but this time French Rafales and Romanian F-16s are flying over the region – the context is different.
  • NATO infrastructure in the region – Estonia signed with Lockheed Martin for 3 additional HIMARS (adding to the 6 it has). France – 2 Rafales to Šiauliai, Romania – 6 F-16s to the same base. The defensive layer is thickening.

Europe

  • ECB – last decision on March 19: rates hold (2.00/2.15/2.40%). Inflation forecast for 2026 revised upward to 2.6% – primarily due to energy prices following the Middle East war. Growth revised downward to 0.9%.
  • Germany – €500 billion infrastructure program underway, budget deficit growing to 3.7% of GDP from this year. The fiscal restraint that was Germany’s trademark is over.
  • Lagarde – talk of an early departure from the ECB presidency. If France and Germany are already fighting over her successor – this is a political battle over monetary policy direction, not a personnel matter.
  • Northern-Baltic defense memorandum – 10 countries (Germany, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Denmark) signed joint military structure guidelines. Quietly, without major PR – that usually means it’s serious.

Ukraine

  • Front – 125 combat engagements on April 14. Russia is intensifying: 10,256 drones in a single day. 820 Russian military casualties.
  • Dnipro – April 15 declared a day of mourning following a morning attack. In the overnight series – 129 drones and 4 Kh-59/69 missiles.
  • Negotiations status – The Western coalition proposed a ceasefire monitoring mechanism, Russia demands the entire Donbas region before any document. The gap between these positions is not narrowing.
  • Funding – The EU allocated €90 billion for two years (€60 billion in military aid). NATO is considering an additional $15 billion for 2026. Europe is financing the war, but the front holds.

Geopolitics

  • Hormuz crisis – US Navy blockade of Iranian ports since April 12 (Vance announced the collapse of negotiations, Trump immediately declared the blockade). Iran has been closing the strait since February 28 – when the US-Israel war began. Important: the US is blockading only Iranian ports, not the strait itself – other ships sail freely.
  • Oil crisis as precedent – The IEA assesses the Hormuz closure as the largest energy disruption since the 1960s. OPEC+ agreed on April 5 to increase production by 206,000 bbl/day – but several members’ (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Iraq) infrastructure has been damaged; restoring outages will take months.
  • China – called the US blockade “dangerous and irresponsible.” Reports (unverified) that Beijing is preparing an arms shipment to Tehran. Trump threatens 50% tariffs – for now verbally.
  • US-China tariffs – 10% base rate extended until November 2026, but effective cumulative tariffs on some Chinese goods exceed 100–145%. USTR launched new Section 301 investigations (hearings April–May).
  • Russia’s oil revenues – March fossil fuel export revenues: €713 million per day, +52% month-on-month. Rosneft and Lukoil – on the sanctions list since October 2025. Result: revenues are growing. Someone is conducting the transactions, and that someone is India and China through BRICS settlement infrastructure.

IPO Radar

  • Anthropic – $380 billion valuation after February’s $30 billion round (GIC and Coatue). Active negotiations with Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan for an October IPO, target valuation $400–500 billion. Annual revenue run rate: $19 billion (up from $9 billion at end of 2025 – a doubling in one quarter).
  • OpenAI – $500 billion valuation, Altman raising $50 billion from Middle Eastern funds. Target IPO valuation $750–830 billion. This is a move from private capital to sovereign funds, which is itself a geopolitical signal.
  • Stripe – $91.5 billion, signaling H1 2026 IPO. If it goes ahead, it will be the first major tech IPO this year and a clear indicator of market sentiment.

What to Watch Tomorrow

  • Second Iran negotiations round date – whether Washington will confirm a specific time. Oil prices and market mood for the next few days depend on this more than any macro data point.
  • DXY at 97 – the seventh consecutive decline session is approaching an important level. If the dollar breaks through – watch gold and BTC reaction as the first signal.
  • China’s official response – whether Beijing will confirm or deny reports of an arms shipment to Iran. Trump’s 50% tariff threat is waiting for a pretext and will directly impact markets.
  • Baltic prime ministers’ meeting in Tallinn (April 17) – Rail Baltica funding and defense coordination. This time not routine.
  • Russia’s oil revenue continuity – whether April data confirms the March trajectory. If so – the question of sanctions effectiveness will become more painful than it is now.

Meška’s Comment

Hormuz today is not an oil story and not an Iran story. It is a test: can the US in 2026 still dictate to others what sails through that strait. The answer is still unclear, but the contours are visible. The blockade was declared, yet sanctioned tankers are still passing through – Al Jazeera documents this as fact, not speculation. China protests with words, not actions. Iran is waiting. And one Washington hint about a second round of negotiations is enough for oil to drop 8% in a day – meaning the market believes the US wants out of this situation faster than it wants to escalate further.

DXY falling seven days in a row is a separate topic. This is no longer a daily fluctuation – it is a repositioning of positions. While it’s unclear who will win the Iran crisis, capital is looking for alternatives to the dollar as an automatic safe-haven choice. Gold confirms this quietly: neither rising dramatically nor falling – just waiting. BTC at 74–75,000 USD is a similar signal – not panic, not euphoria, just uncertainty that comes at a high price.

One thing was left in the shadows today: 10 Baltic and Nordic countries signed a memorandum on joint defense structures. This is not an alliance, not a treaty, and not an automatic collective defense mechanism. But it is a step toward what Europe will ultimately have to build – a separate defensive logic independent of US guarantees. Lithuania allocates 5.38% of GDP to defense. India is building an independent Russian oil settlement chain. Saudi Arabia is watching the Hormuz crisis and calculating its options. Each of these steps individually looks small. If you put them together on one map – it no longer looks like coincidence. I may be wrong about the timing. But not about the direction.