“The meek shall inherit the Earth, but not its mineral rights.” – J. Paul Getty

Outside of the drama surrounding Twitter (TWTR) and Elon Musk, who is now a board member of the company, there’s not a lot of newsflows this morning centered on US stocks. The only economic report on the calendar is the ISM Services report at 10 AM eastern, but there are also a number of Fed speakers scheduled. At 10 AM, we’ll hear from Minneapolis Fed President Kashkari, and then at 11:05 AM Fed Governor Lael Brainard will likely shed additional light on whether the Fed moves 50 bps at its next meeting. The final speaker of the day will be New York Fed President Williams at 2 PM.

Equity futures are modestly lower today, but the most noteworthy development of the morning is the fact that the 2s10s curve has steepened and has nearly ‘unverted’.

With a month-to-date gain of more than 4% in just two trading days, the run higher in Brazilian stocks has continued into the second quarter. Year to date, the iShares MSCI Brazil ETF (EWZ) is now up over 40%, and given that gain, we don’t know what’s more noteworthy. Is it the fact that since its inception in 2000, this represents the best YTD start for the ETF (through 4/4) on record? Or is it that even after this year’s rally, the ETF is over 6% relative to its high in 2021?

Starting with YTD starts, the chart below shows the YTD gain for EWZ going back to 2001. This year’s 40.8% gain easily ranks as the strongest YTD gain for the ETF since its launch.

As mentioned above, the last year has been a roller-coaster for EWZ. Even after this year’s sharp rally, which began on 1/5, EWZ remains more than 6% below its June 2021 high.