Another Relief Rally?

Daily Updates:

• US and global equity indexes start the week with a rally amidst a greater appetite for risk. US and global equity indexes were all up yesterday: SPX closed 1.76% higher, the NDX advanced 2.16%, and the MSCI World Index rose 1.24%. 
• The relief rally across equities and crypto assets, which have both experienced a 1-month long stretch of losses, comes amidst signs that President Trump’s “Liberation Day” April 2 tariffs will have a narrower scope than initially expected. This may have helped to alleviate some market fears of the wider impact of Trump's trade policies on global growth and inflation. 
• Speaking at the White House yesterday, the President signalled that some trading partners may experience exemptions or reductions in his reciprocal tariff program – “I may give a lot of countries breaks”. 
• Trump also signalled a readiness to delay some of his sector-specific tariffs to a later date, though he said he plans to impose tariffs on automobile imports, which he delayed back in February, “fairly soon, over the next few days”.
• In an effort to advance his trade policy threats further, Trump has also announced what is being referred to as ‘secondary tariffs’ of 25% on any nation that purchases crude oil or gas from Venezuela. 

• BTC also benefitted from the boost in risk-sentiment, enjoying a rally that saw the largest crypto token break past $88K, a level it last traded at in early March.
• While not turning strongly bullish, sentiment in derivatives markets has at least pulled away from the persistently bearish tilt it’s held over the last few weeks.
• Futures yields have risen, particularly at short tenors, BTC funding rates have flipped positive (however, ETH’s have remained negative), and skew towards puts at short-dated expiries has relented somewhat.
• Front-end vols stay lower too – despite the re-rally higher in spot prices.

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• BNB Chain has introduced a $100M incentive program to encourage major centralized exchanges to list its native tokens and boost ecosystem liquidity. Eligible projects must have a minimum $5M market cap and $1M in daily trading volume.
• Trump-backed World Liberty Financial (WLFI) launched a new stablecoin, USD1, for testing on the BNB Chain. The tests included cross-chain transfers with Ethereum.
• BlackRock has debuted a Bitcoin exchange-traded product, ETP, in Europe today, with an expense ratio of 0.15% until year-end. The ETP will be accessible to both retail and institutional investors, and Coinbase will act as the custodian for the fund. 
• Shares of Trump Media rose 9% in premarket trading after the company announced an agreement with Crypto.com to launch ETFs with a focus on “Made In America” industries. According to a statement by Crypto.com they “will support the backend technology, provide custody and supply the cryptocurrencies for the ETFs, which are anticipated to include a unique ETF basket of cryptocurrencies incorporating Bitcoin, Cronos and other crypto assets”. 
• MEXC DEX+ has partnered with Pump.fun, the memecoin launchpad protocol, to become the first DEX aggregator integrating Pump.fun’s new native DEX, PumpSwap.

This Week’s Calendar:

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Charts of the Day: