Wealthion Macro Bites 5-21

The Jerusalem Post broke the story this morning that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has issued a directive that Iran’s near-weapons-grade uranium should not be sent abroad. This directive threatens ceasefire negotiations because President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu have both cited removal of Iran’s enriched uranium as a nonnegotiable condition to ending hostilities. Oil futures rallied sharply on the news. Trump said the U.S. was poised to resume Iranian attacks if the U.S. does not “get the right answers” from Tehran in the next few days, while Iran responded, “If aggression against Iran is repeated, the promised regional war will extend beyond the region this time.”

The Wall Street Journal reports the Trump administration is awarding $2B in grants to nine quantum-computing companies in deals that include the U.S. government taking equity stakes. The Commerce Department has agreed to award $1B of the package to IBM; $375M to GlobalFoundries; $100M each to D-Wave Quantum, Rigetti Computing and Infleqtion; and $38M to startup Diraq. Funding for the program will be sourced from the 2022 Chips and Science Act.

In the first tangible developments in the European Commission’s critical minerals stockpile initiative (announced Dec. ’25), the EU has shortlisted tungsten, rare earths and gallium for its first joint stockpile and is holding talks with major ports (esp. Rotterdam in the Netherlands) to store the minerals. Reuters suggests magnesium, germanium and graphite are next up on the EU’s stockpile focus list.

Following President Xi’s agreement (at last week’s Beijing summit) to address U.S. concerns over China’s rare earth export controls, China’s Ministry of Commerce issued an official statement on Wednesday defending its export controls as “legitimate and lawful” and said both sides would study and resolve “each other’s reasonable and lawful concerns.” Stay tuned…

U.K.-based energy think-tank Ember reports April electricity generated from wind and solar (22%) exceeded gas (20%) globally for the first month on record. Ember estimated 13% year-over-year growth in global wind and solar output, with U.K. +35%, Chile +24%, Australia +17%, China +14%, EU +13%, U.S. +8%, and Brazil +4%.

Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem telegraphed the “tough” situation Fed Chair Kevin Warsh hopes to avoid in which central bankers are pushed into raising rates to address transient energy-related inflation, only to quickly pivot to cutting rates if demand softens.

The U.S. EIA reports U.S. crude and product inventories declined 18.941M barrels last week, or 2.7M bpd. Over the past 5, 10 and 20 weeks, inventories are down 73.7M, 80.96M and 97.59M respectively. Given seasonal travel patterns, inventories could test post-1990 lows in the next 5-to-6 weeks.

Euro Stoxx 50 -0.5%, S&P futures -0.25% and Nasdaq futures -0.45%. 10-year Treasury yield +2.2bps (4.607%). DXY dollar index +0.15%, spot gold -0.7% and spot silver -1.25%. Brent futures +1.8% ($106.92) and WTI futures +2.3% ($100.53).

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