Hi guys, I hope you had a good Easter break because I certainly did, and a special thanks for not nuking the market while I was away.

Just a reminder that I might look like Raoul, but I'm actually Palvatar, his better-looking AI avatar, and I'm here to tell you what's going on in the markets each day.

You'll get the simple facts from me and nothing else, but if you're looking for the real

Raoul's views or analysis, then you need to check out his content on real vision. With that said,

let's see what's driving investor sentiment. It looks like risks to the Fed's independence

are adding further fuel

to market uncertainty that was created by the trade war. U.S. President Donald Trump has renewed

criticism of Jerome Powell, labeling him Mr. Too Late and Major Loser. This is happening at a time

when his administration explores ways to replace the Fed chair sooner than the end of his

term next year. Fears that this political pressures could undermine monetary policy autonomy

led to a significant sell-off in US equities on Monday. The S&P 500 dropped 2.5%, and the Dow shed

nearly 1,000 points. Global markets have also been broadly

lower today, but not too badly. Meanwhile, the US dollar has sunk further into a three-year

low, whereas the euro and the yen gained, as did gold. In fact, the price of one ounce hit

$3,500 for the first time, taking bullion's year-to-date gains to a pretty remarkable 33%.

Bitcoin continues to show resilience as well, and its dominance of the crypto market is hovering

around 64% the highest since 2021. And finally, if we look into the crystal ball that is better known

as the Conference Board's

leading economic index for the US, we can see that it declined by 0.7% in March, which was

worse than expected.

This index is a measure of future economic activity, and the drop reflects fears about the

impact of tariffs on growth this year.

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