🧭 MACRO SNAPSHOT

The Fed meeting today is the only macro event that matters. Kevin Warsh's confirmation as Chair has shifted the rates narrative meaningfully — Bitcoin Magazine and Polymarket are both pricing a non-trivial probability of a hike in 2026, which would be a clean policy reversal. CPI at multi-year highs (per All-In's read) layered against unemployment at 4.3% and GDP growth at just 1.6% (FRED) is the textbook stagflation setup that long-duration risk assets hate. The 2s/10s curve is essentially flat at 4.05/4.43 (FRED) — disinverted but not in a way that signals confident growth. HY credit spreads at 271bps (FRED) remain benign, so credit markets are not yet pricing distress.

The Iran picture flipped fast: IEA is now flagging demand destruction and an oil glut after the war shock (CNBC) — that's a structural negative for energy capex names and a structural positive for consumer/transports if it holds. For the portfolio, the cross-currents that matter today: (1) rising real-rate risk pressures long-duration tech ($AVGO, $GOOGL, $NVDA), (2) a softer oil regime helps demand-side names but pressures the energy capex thesis embedded in $GEV and the IPP names, and (3) a Warsh-led hawkish pivot would force a re-rating across high-multiple growth. VIX at 16.41 (FRED) tells you the market doesn't yet believe it.

₿ BITCOIN DAILY WRITE-UP

Price & Market Structure: BTC is at $63,900, down 1.36% on the day and -16.75% over 30 days, sitting roughly 49% below the $126K ATH. BTC dominance at 56.0% is elevated — capital is consolidating into BTC rather than rotating to alts, which historically is mid-bear-cycle behavior.

Structural Thesis: We hold BTC as a long-horizon, non-sovereign monetary asset whose supply schedule is mechanically constrained (3.125 BTC/block, ~95.4% mined) while institutional demand infrastructure deepens. The thesis does not require near-term price recovery — it requires the institutional rails (ETFs, bank custody, sovereign/treasury adoption) to keep being built. They are.

What Happened This Week: The Warsh Fed pivot is the macro event of the week — Bitcoin Magazine flagged that signaled rate hikes are a real possibility, which is unambiguously bearish for BTC in the near term. Offsetting that, Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas disclosed a 70% portfolio allocation to BTC (Bitcoin Magazine) — anecdotal but the kind of sovereign-individual conviction signal that historically marks bear-cycle accumulation phases. The Bitcoin Layer flashed an unconfirmed "green dot" on its liquidity indicator — early, not confirmation.

Bull / Bear Scorecard:
- 🟢 Supply shock still mechanically intact; ~95.4% of total supply mined, new issuance constrained while institutional onboarding continues (T. Rowe Price ETF launch this week)
- 🟢 Institutional rails deepening during a 47% drawdown is structurally unprecedented vs. prior cycles where institutions retreated
- 🟢 BTC dominance at 56% suggests capital fleeing alts is consolidating in BTC, not exiting crypto entirely
- 🔴 Cycle may have peaked at $126K within typical month 12–18 window; historical drawdowns of 70–85% suggest $40–55K downside is on the table
- 🔴 Custody concentration risk (Coinbase/GameStop SEC filing) is a real institutional single-point-of-failure
- 🔴 Warsh Fed = rising real-rate risk, the single most reliable BTC headwind historically

Conviction Check: Action: HOLD | Conviction: 5/10. No change. The structural thesis is intact; the cyclical setup is unfavorable. We don't sell on cyclical setups.

What to Watch:
- Spot BTC ETF net flows — sustained 30-day net inflows during this drawdown would be the strongest possible bullish structural signal
- DFII10 (10Y real yields) direction post-Warsh — a roll-over here is historically the strongest BTC macro catalyst
- Any further custody concentration events (Coinbase exposure disclosures from public co's)

Community Pulse: Bitcoin Twitter and the newsletter set are split — The Bitcoin Layer is leaning constructive ("Strategy Doesn't Have to Unwind for Bitcoin to Recover" and the unconfirmed green dot suggest they see capitulation behind us), while Bitcoin Magazine is sounding the Warsh-hawkish alarm. Reddit was a ghost town across $r/wallstreetbets, $r/investing, $r/stocks — that silence itself is informative. In prior cycles, retail quiet during a 47% drawdown has historically marked late-bear sentiment, not early-bear. Salinas's 70% allocation disclosure is being passed around as the conviction-trade-of-the-week.

🔬 TODAY'S DEEP DIVES

No new ideas were screened today and no rolling review was queued. Rather than fabricate filler, I'll use this section to flag the highest-priority re-review candidates William should consider routing to a deep dive given today's macro setup — see the Re-Review Queue below.

The discipline holds: I will not pad the brief with weak ideas to fill a section. If the screen is empty, the screen is empty. Tomorrow's screen will run as scheduled.

📋 TARGET LIST STATUS

No conviction changes today. No names dropped, no names added — the screen was empty. The 50-name cap remains open. $GEV is the name to watch — +15.7% on the week on the GridOS launch is starting to look like the market re-rating the grid-infrastructure tailwind we've been monitoring.

💼 YOUR PORTFOLIO

• $AAPL | HOLD | 6/10 — WWDC Siri AI reveal underwhelmed the market; thesis intact but no near-term catalyst. Hold the position, don't add.
• $AVAV | HOLD | 5/10 — Securities fraud litigation overhang is real; down 9% on the week. Watching closely; one more leg down or material litigation news triggers a trim review.
• $AVGO | BUY MORE | 9/10 — Highest-conviction holding. The -8% pullback into a Warsh-hawkish setup is a gift; thesis on custom AI silicon + VMware monetization fully intact.
• $BABA | STRONG HOLD | 8/10 — Down 10.5% in a week, now -41.5% from 52W high. This is sentiment, not fundamentals. Hold; do not chase down but the structural thesis (cloud + AI + ecommerce) is unchanged.
• $FSLR | HOLD | 7/10 — Down 13.9% in a week on residential solar weakness ($ENPH read-through). Thesis on utility-scale & IRA tailwinds intact; hold through volatility.
• $GOOGL | STRONG HOLD | 9/10 (correction: hold conviction registers 5/10 in feed; thesis is 9/10) — Continued pullback is multiple compression, not fundamentals. Hold.
• $ISRG | BUY MORE | 8/10 — Bouncing along 52W low; surgical robotics demand is structural. Adding here is high-quality dollar-cost averaging.
• $MKL | HOLD | 7/10 — Modest +2.9% recovery. No new fundamentals; hold.
• $MP | HOLD | 7/10 — Down to $57.18. Rare earth supply security thesis fully intact; hold through the pullback.
• $SYM | HOLD | 6/10 — Down 9.7%. Walmart relationship is the lynchpin; nothing has changed there. Hold.
• $TSLA | HOLD | 5/10 — Robotaxi Austin rollout is the only thing that matters; execution data over the next 60 days defines the position.
• $UNH | STRONG HOLD | 7/10 — Up 2.3%, trading near 52W high. Recovery thesis playing out. Hold.

⚠️ WATCH LIST

• $AVAV — Active securities fraud litigation + 10% weekly decline. If the class action gets certified or new disclosures emerge, this drops to TRIM. Watching for next 8-K.
• $GEV — +15.7% on the week post-GridOS launch. If we get another data point on grid-infrastructure backlog (orders/pricing), this earns a conviction upgrade to 7/10 and a status change to RECOMMEND.
• $ENPH — "US Residential Solar Installations Set to Stall for Years" is a thesis-impacting headline. If next earnings confirm sustained installation weakness, drop to 5/10 and consider for removal.
• $BABA — Now -41.5% from 52W high. If we see capitulation volume + a positive China stimulus headline in the same week, this earns a conviction upgrade. Watching tape closely.

🔁 RE-REVIEW QUEUE

Eight previously dropped names have hit their re-review window. Today's macro setup makes three of them particularly interesting:

• $CEG | Was 6/10 | Dropped 2026-05-13 | Utilities. Dropped due to 50-name cap pressure, not thesis failure. With $GEV and $VST up sharply on grid/power demand and AI-datacenter electricity narratives accelerating, CEG (nuclear baseload exposure) warrants a fresh look.
• $BWXT | Was 6/10 | Dropped 2026-05-07 | Industrials. Same nuclear renaissance thesis; small-modular reactor narrative has only strengthened since drop.
• $KTOS | Was 6/10 | Dropped 2026-05-13 | Industrials. Defense tech / drones. With $AVAV under litigation overhang, $KTOS deserves reconsideration as the cleaner expression of the same thesis.
• $DDOG, $TTD, $NET, $CRWD, $NTRA also due. None have obvious catalyst-driven re-review urgency today.

To run a fresh dive on any of these, ask Meridian in the chat.