The question the next PMI will answer is how long Chinese manufacturers can continue footing part of a bill that Washington wrote.

The Macro Butler made his customary appearance on Asharq Bloomberg TV to close out Q1 with some uncomfortable arithmetic: oil markets are still mispricing the energy shock from Operation Epic F**k-Up, prices are heading materially higher before demand destruction does the Fed’s job for it, and Russian oil — despite everyone’s hopes — will not ride to the rescue.

In America, diesel shortages are coming which means the grocery bill for everyone not dining at a Washington plutocracy fundraiser is about to become considerably more thought-provoking.

The message, as always, was simple: the market is wrong, the cycle is right, and the ancient masters would have shorted consumer discretionary.

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/interview-with-asharq-bloomberg-tv-197

In a display of alliance management that Clausewitz could not have anticipated, the Manipulator-in-Chief paused his continuous victory lap over a decimated adversary — who continues, with remarkable persistence for a defeated nation, to regulate the Strait of Hormuz — to attack his own NATO allies before breakfast on Tuesday. The North Atlantic Terror Organization, having not dutifully followed Washington into its holy adventure, now finds itself presented with a binary choice of breathtaking elegance: purchase American jet fuel at whatever price the Empire deems appropriate, or go procure it themselves by fighting their way across the straits that the decimated enemy still controls.

The ancient art of alliance management, one notes, has never been practiced with such creative efficiency. NATO's foreign ministers are understood to be reviewing their options. The options are not good.

🤵 The Macro Butler’s Monthly Meditation 🤵

🌐 Invisible, indispensable, and surprisingly powerful, helium commands attention when it tightens its grip. 🌐

Read more here: https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/the-macro-butlers-monthly-meditation-a41

Dear Investors,

Please find below the performance of The Macro Butler Long/Short Portfolio as of end of March 2026.

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/the-macro-butler-longshort-portfolio-7e8

Dear Investors,

Please find below the performance of The Macro Butler Strategic Portfolio as of end of March 2026.

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/the-macro-butler-strategic-portfolio-a0c

Dear Investors,

Please find below the performance of The Macro Butler IG Portfolio as of end of March 2026.

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/the-macro-butler-ig-portfolio-march-3b1

At dawn on April Fools’ Day — the most appropriate date imaginable — The Macro Butler arrived on BFM 89.9 to deliver the kind of news that is no joke: higher oil prices, global stagflation, and a portfolio reshuffle that Wall Street’s cheerleaders are not yet ready to recommend. The verdict was unambiguous — the only dip worth buying right now is the one in gold, and everything else is a trap dressed up as an opportunity.

Happy April Fools’ Day. The macro, unfortunately, is entirely serious.

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/interview-with-bfm-899-malaysia-01042026

The US Census Bureau has proudly delivered February retail sales data with the relevance of a weather forecast for a city that has since burned down. Sales rebounded 0.6% — ten of thirteen categories posted gains, auto sales surged 1.2%, and economists declared the consumer "pretty resilient" — all of which was true approximately five weeks ago, before Operation Epic F**k-Up sent gasoline above $4 a gallon, destroyed a quarter of global LNG supply, and rendered every February data point as useful as a rotten avocado on a tanker waiting to transit a closed strait.

The figures are not adjusted for inflation, which is fitting, since inflation has not adjusted itself for the figures either. The retail picture heading into the Iran war was, by all accounts, reasonably constructive. The retail picture heading out of it is a separate dataset entirely — one that the Census Bureau will deliver, with customary precision, approximately six weeks after it ceases to matter.

In a nutshell, February retail sales were resilient — unfortunately, February was five weeks and one holy war ago.

In a rare act of statistical courage, the ISM Manufacturing report has become one of the first data releases to acknowledge that Operation Epic F**k-Up has consequences — a breakthrough in official economic honesty that deserves a moment of recognition. Factory activity expanded to 52.7 in March, which sounds encouraging until one notices that the prices paid index surged to 78.3, its highest since mid-2022, having advanced 19.3 points over two months — the fastest acceleration in nearly a decade. Sixty-four percent of manufacturer comments were negative, with 40% citing the war and 20% citing tariffs, suggesting that American industry has identified both the disease and its pre-existing conditions with admirable clarity. The Strait of Hormuz, that gift that keeps giving, is choking not merely oil but aluminium, fertilizer, and helium — the latter being essential for semiconductor production, which is to say that the holy war is now threatening both the global chip supply.

Even if the conflict resolves tomorrow, price pressures will persist due to shipping displacement and infrastructure damage — which is economist for: the inflation is already baked in, and the Fed's 2% target has never felt more theoretical.

In a nutshell, American manufacturers are thriving on paper and drowning in costs — courtesy of a war that was won in the first hour.

On the evening of April Fools' Day — a date the universe selected with characteristic precision — Donald Copperfield emerged before his fellow citizens to deliver the customary victory briefing for Day 32 of a war won comprehensively on Day 1. The Empire, he assured the nation, continues winning big time, more than ever, and will now proceed to obliterate Iran's energy and power infrastructure — a strategic escalation that will, by the immutable laws of cause and effect, make the Strait of Hormuz open up naturally, reduce gasoline prices, and demonstrate conclusively that the correct response to $4 gas is to bomb the country whose waterway your ally's ships can no longer transit because your ally started a war. The logic is airtight. The Emperor further clarified that Iran — having been aggressed by the Empire and subsequently blockading the strait in retaliation — is solely responsible for American pump prices, a framing so audacious that even April Fools' Day seemed inadequate to contain it.

He holds the cards, he reminded the nation. The cards, at this stage, appear to consist primarily of a closed strait, depleted missile stockpiles, troops working remotely from Gulf hotels, and the unshakeable conviction that the Strait of Hormuz will, if sufficiently threatened, open itself voluntarily.

The ancient masters would recognise this as a new hand entirely. It is called FAKE TACO.

In his latest masterclass of geopolitical innovation, Donald Copperfield has resolved the Strait of Hormuz crisis with characteristic simplicity: the US Navy will not be opening it, but nations currently dependent on Middle Eastern crude are welcome to purchase their oil from the United States and the 51st state of Venezuela instead. The elegance of this solution is breathtaking — having disrupted 20% of global oil supply by launching a war next to the world's most critical energy chokepoint, the remedy on offer is to buy from a country just colonized by the Empire whose production infrastructure has been deteriorating for a decade. China, India, Japan, South Korea, and most of Europe are understood to be reviewing this proposal with the enthusiasm it deserves.

The petroleum arithmetic that appears to have escaped the Manipulator-in-Chief's attention is straightforward: the United States is a net importer of crude oil to the tune of approximately 3 million barrels per day. The EIA publishes this fact weekly, with admirable consistency, for anyone inclined to read it. The confusion stems from conflating "petroleum exports" — which includes vast quantities of natural gas liquids from wet gas plays that are exported precisely because they are wildly overproduced relative to domestic needs — with actual crude oil, of which the US has none to spare. The nuance is instructive: the US exports roughly 3 million barrels per day of crude because it is the wrong grade for American refineries, while simultaneously importing 6.4 million barrels per day of the right grade to keep those same refineries running. The net position is unambiguous.

Offering the world American crude as a substitute for Middle Eastern supply is, in this context, less a geopolitical strategy than a petroleum literacy problem — one that $120 oil and a strait under war have made considerably more consequential than a morning Truth Social post would suggest.

In a seamless transition from luxury tourism to military hospitality, the Gulf puppet monarchies — having temporarily exhausted their supply of tourists willing to photograph their sand castles — have repurposed their five-star infrastructure to accommodate American GIs preparing for Season 2: Boots on the Ground Edition. The amenities remain world-class. The exit strategy does not exist.

The monarchies are performing the delicate diplomatic pirouette of hosting an empire whose war has closed their primary oil export route, activated the Houthis, and rendered their long-term survival a subject of considerable actuarial debate. The GIs, meanwhile, are preparing to enter a quagmire that will make Vietnam and Afghanistan — both also won in the first hour — look like warm-up acts.

https://x.com/RT_com/status/2039598418000220242