In 30 seconds: Analyst dampedspring highlighted that MicroStrategy's market-implied claims on its assets have fallen to roughly 90% of BTC holdings, effectively eliminating the premium that had defined the stock, and argued the company is best understood as a leveraged closed-end fund now priced as such. A wave of US economic releases including UMich sentiment, durable goods, PCE/CPI supercore, Chicago Fed activity, and housing data collectively painted a picture of slowing economic momentum alongside inflation that remains stubbornly above the Fed's 2% target. Micron reported blowout fiscal Q4 results with revenue guidance roughly 16% above consensus and gross margins well ahead of expectations, even as the broader semiconductor index experienced extreme daily volatility and most mega-cap tech stocks fell into oversold territory. Brad Setser detailed how China's surging manufacturing and auto exports have contributed to a near-$1 trillion current account surplus, directly displacing European—especially German—exports and driving large-scale layoffs at companies like VW.
As of the close, total claims on the company's assets have fallen to roughly 90% of its bitcoin holdings. The right side of the balance sheet is now worth substantially less than the BTC owned. A combination of the equity and its structured products is cheaper than BTC. $MSTR Enterprise MNAV (market-based, with up to date convert prices): 0.9. The framing that makes sense here is simple: the company is a leveraged closed end fund. The business case for $MSTR — a leveraged closed end fund — hasn't changed; only its price has. Claims on $MSTR assets: 90%. The good news, if you are long, is that there is no immediate forcing mechanism — no margin call, no bank loan being pulled, no maturity.
The economy is doing that thing where it slows down and prices stay high at the same time, which is the macroeconomic equivalent of your car losing speed while the engine overheats. Supercore CPI ran at 3.7% year over year in May, while supercore PCE came in at 3.9%. Both continued to rise in May, moving further away from Fed's 2% target. UMich June 1-year inflation expectations (revised): 4.6%. Households feel somewhat more optimistic about the outlook, though absolute sentiment levels remain well short of the "all clear" zone. The Chicago Fed National Activity Index printed at 0.10 in May. The personal savings rate fell to 3.0% in May, its lowest level in four years. May durable goods orders dropped 4.4% month-over-month, the lowest since February 2025, compared with a prior reading of +19.2%. May wholesale inventories rose 0.3% month-over-month, decelerating from a prior reading of +0.7%. May retail inventories climbed 0.6%, also cooling from a prior reading of +1.0%. Housing is in the doldrums during spring selling season. New home sales fell 7.4% month-over-month and 6.8% year-over-year, putting the annualized pace at 580,000, the lowest since 2022. There are 500,000 unsold new homes sitting on the market, translating to 10.3 months of supply, the second highest since 2009. The average sale price, at $540,000, hit its second all-time high. Fewer people are buying, more homes are piling up, and prices keep climbing. You would think at least one of those variables would cooperate.
Operating income beat by 21%. DRAM spot prices are up roughly 50% since April alone. These are not subtle numbers. And yet the stock trades at 7x earnings. Fair enough. But 7x. The broader semiconductor complex, meanwhile, is doing its best impression of a crisis. SOX months with 1 or fewer sub-1% days — March 2000: 0. That is not a list you want to be on. The Nasdaq VIX is now pricing in implied daily moves of ~2%, with the S&P 500 at ~1.25%. The VIX itself closed at 18.60, down 1.54% on the day, which feels almost polite given the context. Nasdaq VIX implied daily move: ~2%.
There is a number that should probably bother you more than it does. China's current account surplus (adjusted): $1 trillion. China's current account surplus (adjusted): $1 trillion. The customs goods surplus alone has risen by $800 billion. These are not small discrepancies. The mechanism is straightforward. A pronounced swing in China's trade surplus in industrial machinery and transportation equipment has propelled China's manufacturing surplus to a record high. Chinese global auto exports have soared in nominal terms. Export volumes have shown an enormous outperformance relative to import volumes. China is making more things and selling them to everyone, and the people on the other end of that trade are feeling it. Europe is feeling it most. Euro area export growth has stalled. Europe's auto exports to China tanked over the course of 2024 and 2025, while imports from China to Europe soared in 2025. Germany sits at the center of this. German exports to China have fallen by a percentage point of German GDP, led by autos. Net exports and reduced investment in manufacturing have weighed heavily on German growth. This is not abstract. Layoffs and job losses in a key German export sector are now large scale. VW announced layoffs. Germany and Europe ex-Ireland are getting more investment income from higher global rates, which flatters the current account numbers. Higher bond yields are a nice tailwind for your investment income line. They are not a substitute for selling cars.
Here is what moved this week.
S&P 500: 7,354.02, down 0.05% on the day
Gold: $4,081.70, up 1.27% on the day
US Dollar (DXY): 101.34, down 0.09% on the day
WTI crude: $69.45, down 3.43% on the day
Gas (per gallon): $3.91, down 3.41% on the week
30-year fixed mortgage: 6.49%, up 2 bp on the week
Initial jobless claims: 215,000, down 5.29% on the week
Continuing claims: 1,821,000, up 1.17% on the week
Average hourly earnings: $37.53, up 0.32% on the month