Nick Hodge,
Publisher
May 4, 2026
The stock market kicked your ass in April.
No one saw it coming given the Iran War and resultant energy shock.
The S&P was up over 9% for the month — its best since the Covid recovery surge of late 2020.
The NASDAQ was up even more, flowering 13% during the shower month.
If you’re feeling like you can’t keep up, or like you’re missing out, you’re not alone.
But as I wrote to you last week, all may not be what it seems, and there are some hidden risks that should temper your FOMO and direct your positioning.
For starters, nearly all of the stock market’s growth last month was driven by tech stocks. The Information Technology sector of the S&P was up nearly 20% in April, more than twice the next closest sector, which was Real Estate.
This was driven by Q1 earnings that are now being reported coupled with a breakdown in the US Dollar Index (DXY). After rising from 95 to over 100 as war broke out, the DXY softened to 98 in April. Those cheaper dollars drove many asset classes higher, including stocks, commodities, and Bitcoin.
The other thing that happened was the reporting of US economic growth for Q1 coming in at 2.0%, which was an acceleration from the paltry 0.5% growth in Q4 2025.
For now, that growth is providing cover for inflation that is clearly accelerating.
What’s more, Q1 earnings and Q1 GDP are both looking back. Looking forward, trouble is clearly brewing in Macroland.
In the current quarter, inflation is clearly outpacing growth and corporate earnings will decelerate versus prior quarters because of rising input costs, which will make for a tougher summer and fall for stocks.
So don’t lose the forest for the trees.
When I look at my personal retirement account (blue line, below), I failed to outperform the market (orange line, below) in April. But over the past year, I’m outperforming it nearly twice over.
I did that with a mix of gold stocks (like these here), commodity producers, and infrastructure companies.
Every month, I show members of Foundational Profits exactly what positions I own as well as my weighting to them. Those issues come out the second Friday of every month, so there is a new issue this week.
If you’re feeling whipsawed after the last couple months of market action, or if you aren’t beating the market like I am over the past year, you should consider following along as I navigate the markets with real capital in real time every single month.
Call it like you see it,
Nick Hodge
Publisher, Daily Profit Cycle