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Misery loves company. If you are not careful, it will start managing your money for you.

A year ago, a close friend was navigating a rough patch. Trying to cheer her up, I told her there were people worse off than she was. She got upset with me. I did not fully understand her reaction at the time. Now I do. Many of us were taught to soothe pain by comparing it. We scroll past posts that say, “You think you’re having a bad day? Somebody is homeless.” We tell ourselves that because someone else has it worse, we should feel better. Borrowed relief, however, always comes with a cost.

Someone I had not seen in a while reached out recently, ready for a full pity party. When I mentioned I was doing great, the disappointment in their response made me think. Some people will link up with you just to commiserate your pain. If your struggle looks worse than theirs, they feel better for a moment, and a moment is all it is. It does not heal the wound. It is a bandage on a bullet hole.

This behavior touches your money more than you realize.

When you spend too much time comparing your pain, your progress, or your position to someone else’s, you stay stuck in a scarcity survival mode. Harvard economist Sendhil Mullainathan and Princeton psychologist Eldar Shafir noted that “scarcity captures the mind.” When this happens, your attention narrows. Your decision-making becomes constrained. It gets harder to make money decisions from vision, peace, and self trust. You start reacting just to get relief.

This is why so many budgeting plans fall apart. The issue is rarely the spreadsheet or the app. It is the story underneath the numbers. If your spending is being driven by shame, envy, fear, or the instinctive need to feel better than someone else, no software on earth can save you. My grandmother used to say, “You block your blessings.”

A better response is softer and stronger at once. The next time you feel the urge to measure your pain against someone else’s, stop and ask: “What is hurting in me that still needs attention?” The next time you see someone struggling, do something useful. Give a dollar, say a prayer, and/or offer kindness.

Unlocking your overflow requires spiritual maturity. This level of self-awareness helps you close the leaks in your money flow and in your heart. Stop using someone else’s suffering to feel taller. Stop reaching for comparison like it is medicine. Look inward. Name the leak. Fix the root.

Money flows better in a life that is honest, generous, and fed from a place of gratitude.

Markets moved higher last week as investors leaned back into risk. Easing tensions in the Middle East, better than expected inflation signals, and strong early earnings helped set the tone. U.S. equities pushed to fresh record highs, international markets followed, Treasury yields moved lower, and crude oil pulled back as fears around energy supply disruption began to ease. Gold also found support, showing that even in a stronger risk environment, investors were still keeping one eye on uncertainty.

The bigger message was simple. When markets get relief from geopolitical stress and earnings come in better than feared, money tends to move quickly. Last week was a good reminder that sentiment can shift fast when fear starts losing its grip.

Equities: Last week, the S&P 500 stacked three straight record highs and posted a third straight weekly gain of more than 3%. Optimism around ceasefire developments, reduced concern about energy bottlenecks, and improving inflation talk all helped fuel the rally.

Earnings season also gave investors something to work with. JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citi, and PNC all beat Wall Street earnings expectations. Strong loan growth and improving credit quality stood out as important signals, especially for investors trying to gauge whether the consumer and broader economy are still holding up.

Technology also helped lead the way. AI-related headlines stayed supportive, while software names that had been under pressure bounced sharply. One weak pocket was Netflix, which sold off as investors worried about the company’s future after Reed Hastings.

Fixed Income: Core bonds moved higher last week, with falling Treasury yields helping support the Bloomberg Aggregate Index. Lower yields, tighter credit spreads, and calmer volatility created a better backdrop for corporate borrowing.

Investment grade and high yield spreads, which had widened sharply during the recent Iran conflict, tightened again as conditions improved. This opened the door for a strong wave of new issuance. For the week of April 6, gross issuance ran about 20% above last year’s already strong pace, and demand remained firm even with heavy supply.

One of the more important themes continues to be AI-related borrowing. Of the $673 billion issued year-to-date, roughly $93 billion came from AI hyperscalers funding data centers, cloud infrastructure, and compute expansion. Their growing role in longer dated debt is beginning to reshape parts of the credit market, especially in high quality long duration indexes.

Commodities: Commodities were mixed. Oil lost momentum late in the week as de-escalation headlines out of the Middle East reduced fears of a prolonged supply shortage. Iran’s statement that the Strait of Hormuz was fully open helped push crude lower, though lingering shipping delays and military tension kept a floor under prices.

Gold moved higher into the end of last week. A more stable geopolitical backdrop and hopes for less inflation pressure helped support the metal, especially as markets weighed what that could mean for future central bank policy.

Currencies: The U.S. dollar weakened for a second straight week as easing Gulf tensions and rising bets on Fed rate cuts weighed on the greenback.

U.S. Economic Recap (April 12 - 18, 2026)

The economic calendar was light last week, but Producer Price Index (PPI) data still mattered. March wholesale inflation came in cooler than expected. Core PPI, which strips out food and energy, rose just 0.1% for the month, and gave markets some relief.

The annual picture still showed pressure, with producer prices up 4.0% from 3.4% a year earlier. Energy was the main driver, especially oil and gasoline tied to Strait of Hormuz disruptions. Even so, the increase was smaller than markets feared.

Investors are also watching whether companies are passing tariff related costs through to consumers. In that context, trade service costs, often viewed as a rough proxy for margins, fell for the second straight month in March.

Europe: European stocks advanced as the same geopolitical relief story that lifted U.S. markets helped support the STOXX 600. Earnings were less impressive. LVMH missed revenue expectations, Hermes posted weak first quarter sales, and ASML’s beat and raise failed to excite investors.

U.K. shares lagged due to political uncertainty tied to Prime Minister Starmer and questions around a 2024 U.S. ambassador appointment.

Asia: Asia Pacific markets gained ground, led by technology. South Korea rose more than 5.5%, helped by upbeat AI sentiment and stronger April exports driven by semiconductors. Taiwan outperformed with support from Taiwan Semiconductor earnings. In Japan, the Nikkei outpaced the Topix as exporter names faced pressure from yen chatter before later week currency strength.

In greater China, better-than-expected first quarter growth and fresh AI and quantum computing headlines supported risk appetite.

The Caribbean had a steady, execution focused week. No central bank rate changes, GDP releases, or major fintech launches were noted. The biggest developments came from multilateral meetings and targeted development support.

At the IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings, Caribbean officials discussed growth, climate risk, and financing under uncertain global conditions. The message was familiar but still important: fiscal discipline and private sector mobilization remain central.

The Caribbean Development Bank approved two notable measures. Barbados received a US$560,000 grant for an MSME Financing Reform Initiative aimed at improving access to credit through secured transactions and collateral registry modernization. CDEMA also received EU-backed support to strengthen disaster risk systems ahead of the 2026 hurricane season.

For people and businesses across the region, this matters because better small business financing rules can expand access to working capital, while stronger disaster systems can reduce vulnerability before storms hit. It was not a flashy week, but it was a useful one.

Crypto finally looked like it could breathe again.

Total crypto market cap climbed about 4% to roughly $2.55T - $2.60T. Bitcoin rallied from around $70.5K to a 10-week high in the $77K - $78K area, gaining roughly 8% to 9% on the week. Ethereum also moved higher, rising 5.62% to $2,380 and breaking above the $2,200 level that had capped price action.

The Fear and Greed Index improved from 16 on April 12 to the low to mid 20s by last week’s end. While that is still fear, it tells us sentiment started thawing. Sometimes markets turn before people feel safe. This was one of those weeks.

U.S. spot BTC ETFs absorbed about $996.4M last week, while spot ETH ETFs added about $275.8M. Bitcoin funding rates also hit their most negative levels since 2023, showing traders were still heavily leaning short even as price moved higher. Setup like those can help fuel rallies when shorts get squeezed.

The CLARITY Act made meaningful progress last week, with passage odds moving above 70%. If that momentum continues, crypto could keep benefiting from improving sentiment and better policy visibility.

Top crypto gainers (last week): M, PENGU, XLM, SEI, ENA

Key U.S. economic releases (April 20 -24, 2026):

Events to watch: Markets will likely stay sensitive to any update tied to the Middle East ceasefire, oil shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, and the broader inflation path. Last week’s rally was helped by relief. Relief rallies can keep running, but only if the headlines do not reverse.

Fed Speakers:

Notable earnings releases are outlined in red in the chart below.

If the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is the receipt you get at the grocery store, the Producer Price Index (PPI) is the invoice the grocery store got from the farm three months ago. At the Rhoda Report, we like to call the PPI the "Early Warning System" for your finances.

On April 14, 2026, the Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) released the latest PPI data, and for the first time in a while, it wasn't as bad as we feared. While economists were bracing for a 1.1% monthly jump, the actual number came in at 0.5%.

Sure, wholesale prices are still up 4.0% year-over-year, the highest since early 2023, but the fact that it "missed" expectations on the low side is a signal that the fire of inflation might be starting to smolder rather than roar.

What exactly is the PPI? It measures the average change in prices that domestic producers receive for their output. It tracks roughly 10,000 indexes across manufacturing, agriculture, and construction.

The Golden Rule: When it costs a factory more to make a box of cereal (PPI), it will eventually cost you more to buy that cereal (CPI). By watching the PPI, you are essentially looking into a crystal ball to see what your grocery bill will look like in three to six months.

While the headline "miss" was good news, the details showed some lingering bruises:

For the average American, the PPI is a massive indicator of where interest rates are headed. The Federal Reserve watches these wholesale numbers to decide if they should cut rates or keep them high to "choke out" inflation.

When PPI comes in cooler than expected, as it did this month, it gives the Fed room to breathe. This is great news if you are sitting on the sidelines of the housing market. A 30-year fixed mortgage at 6.5% feels like a heavy lift compared to the 4% rates of the past. If PPI continues to cool, we could finally see those borrowing costs for homes and cars start to drift downward.

We saw this play out in 2022 during the invasion of Ukraine. Energy shocks hit producers first, sending the PPI into the stratosphere before consumers felt the full brunt at the pump. Today’s Middle East tensions are following a similar script. However, the fact that March’s PPI didn't explode suggests that businesses might be getting better at absorbing these shocks, or finding "workarounds" that don't involve immediate price hikes.

At the Rhoda Report, we believe informed investors make the best decisions. When PPI cools:

Treat the PPI as your monthly "budgeting alert." When it eases, it’s a sign that you might have more breathing room in your household budget soon. Use that extra margin to pay down high-interest debt or top off your retirement accounts before the market prices in the next recovery.

Disclaimer: This newsletter is strictly educational. The information this report provides does not constitute investment, financial, trading, or any other advice. You should not treat any of the report’s content as such. Please be careful and do your research.