Are Markets Ignoring Inflation? | Macro Mondays: May 18, 2026

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**Mikkel Rosenvold** (1:09)
Welcome to Real Vision. Welcome to Macro Mondays. My name is Mikkel Rosenvold. I'm joined as usual by my co-host Andreas Steno. We have a jam-packed show for you today once more. We are looking back at the Trump-Xi summits. We're looking a little bit at interest rates, and then we're obviously looking at the inflation reports we got last week.
Do we need to worry? Is this the end of the good times?
We'll take a look at it. Of course, we'll cover the latest dose of Iran-Hopium that we just got over the morning here. So lots of stuff to talk about. Andreas, how are you feeling? We had an extended weekend in Denmark. We are Europers, after all. And we're entering the part of the year where we have a public holidays left, right, and center. So how would you we can address?

**Andreas Steno** (1:58)
Well, you're absolutely right. You should expect us to be off three to four days a week on average from now on until the end of June. So I guess it could be worse.

**Mikkel Rosenvold** (2:09)
End of August, really?

**Andreas Steno** (2:10)
Yeah, sure. We're off all of July. So I mean, I just took that for granted.

**Mikkel Rosenvold** (2:17)
Absolutely. Now, even though we have a lot of public holidays, we still have lots of great content here in Real Vision. We do have collaborators outside of Europe, thankfully, both Australia and the States. So remember on Wednesday, that's the big one this week, on 4 p.m. Eastern, for all pro members, we have a roundtable discussion. So that's going to be you and Andreas, Jamie, and Raoul talking everything macro, crypto, AI, just shooting shit. So it's going to be really, really fun. Really looking forward to that show, getting all the good guys together. So really looking forward to that one. Remember, this is our free weekly sneak peek into the world of macro and the publications that we publish on Real Vision. To get full access, you need pro access for Real Vision. That gives you access to our three weekly articles. That includes the Steno Signals, that is Andreas' flagship editorial, my geopolitical piece, The Drill, and then our Friday portfolio update, where we take a look at what's happened on the mathematics that we cover in our macro model portfolio at Real Vision. So do check out the approach here for more on that at realvision.com.
As usual, a little reminder here, Andreas, we are trying to be as actionable and concrete as possible, but our recommendations might be, Sometimes it may be good, sometimes it may be shit.
That's the way it is, Andreas. Speaking of sometimes may be good, sometimes may be shit, I'm an avid, I don't know if it's right to say follower, but at least observer of Andrew Tate. I'm very, very fascinated by the following he has, Andreas. And he has obviously been a very, very big Bitcoin guy. He has slipped his toes in finance once in a while.
Now he has essentially killed our program, I'm afraid, Andreas, I want your take on it. He published his life hack. Since the US government is now selling 30 year bonds at 5%, you should simply take 50 million in cash and just buy bonds. That will pay you 2.5 million a year for zero work. $208,000 a month, and that's enough to cover basic expenses like a security team and cigar.
I don't know what your monthly budget is for cigars and security team, Andreas. That's probably one of the good things of not living in Romania. But what's your take here? Is this the life hack we all waited for?