One of the riskiest and most speculative trades in financial markets just got a major boost by President Trump, when he announced Wednesday evening he is "giving very serious consideration to bringing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac public."

Why it matters: The implication here is that Trump has decided "the time would seem to be right" to end the conservatorship under which the two companies have operated since the financial crisis of 2008.

• All this could mean profound changes to the structure of the mortgage market in the U.S. as well as the potential windfall for owners of their thinly traded common stock.

The big picture: The U.S. government controls both companies. Between them they owe the Treasury hundreds of billions of dollars in something known as a liquidation preference, cash they have kept on their balance sheets since the Treasury started letting them retain all their earnings in 2019.

• For privatization advocates, such as hedge-fund billionaire Bill Ackman, that's all money that the federal government should forgive.
• The so-called senior preferred securities owned by the Treasury should be "deemed repaid," he says in a detailed presentation he released in January.
• On the other hand, as JPMorgan managing director Sajjad Hussain notes in an analysis published following Ackman's presentation, "the feasibility and willingness to write off $340 billion owed to taxpayers may not be viable in the current political climate."

Between the lines: Trump does seem broadly sympathetic to Ackman's view that the government has already been repaid enough for the 2008 bailout.

• "The idea that the government can steal money from its citizens is socialism and is a travesty," Trump wrote in 2021, implying that the money being claimed by the Treasury is in some way illegitimate.
• For his part, Ackman reacted with a 👍 emoji to Trump's statement on taking the agencies public. (Both stocks rose more than 40% Thursday.)

What's next: Trump administration officials have now been charged with finding a route out of conservatorship for the agencies, one that doesn't destabilize the housing market or unnecessarily raise mortgage rates.

• And in order for that to happen, some sort of government guarantee will likely have to remain in place, probably in the form of Senior Preferred Stock Purchase Agreements, under which the government promises to inject cash into the companies should they ever need the money.
• So long as that guarantee remains, Fitch Ratings says, their credit ratings may not need to be adjusted downward. But that said, the ratings agency "expects the process of exiting conservatorship to extend multiple years in order to minimize potential disruption to the U.S. housing market."

The bottom line: Many presidents and many Treasury secretaries have proclaimed a desire to remove Fannie and Freddie from conservatorship.

• And thus far, none of them have found a way to do so. But the stock market seems to believe this time might be different.

The upper bound of "middle class" in America is often pegged at an annual income of between $150,000 and $250,000, but looking at legislation being drawn up by Republicans in Congress, it seems to be much, much higher.

Why it matters: Some of the proposals for the forthcoming budget raise income cutoff levels to as high as $2.5 million per year.

Driving the news: The House is considering allowing state and local tax deductions of as much as $40,000 for people making up to $500,000, Axios' Hans Nichols reported this week, a sign that some blue-state Republicans consider $500,000 to be a middle-class income.

Between the lines: President Trump considers an annual income of $1 million too modest to justify higher income taxes, per Nichols, but is fine with the idea once household income reaches $2.5 million.

• The current incarnation of the bill also raises the level at which the estate tax starts being levied from $15 million to $30 million.

Where it stands: To be in the top 10% of individual earners, a U.S. worker has to earn $2,905 per week, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is $150,000 per year.

• To be in the top 10% of households in 2024, you had to earn $235,000.
• The middle class tops out at $169,800 for a family of three in 2022 dollars, which is $188,400 in 2025 dollars, according to Pew Research Center.

How it works: Some government policies only apply to people making less than a certain amount, on the grounds that the rich are already comfortable enough not to need any extra help from Uncle Sam.

• Looking at where that line gets drawn provides an indicator of where the upper middle class ends and the upper class begins, at least in the eyes of Congress.

Flashback: Trump, in his first term, sent out stimulus checks to those making $198,000 per year or less for married households filing jointly. People earning more than that amount were considered rich enough not to need the checks.

• Conversely, the net investment income tax — a tax on the rich — kicks in only once a married couple filing jointly makes over $250,000 per year.
• For President Biden, $400,000 was the key number, the level below which he said he would never raise taxes, and above which he wanted a new tax to help pay for Medicare.

The bottom line: Now that home values and retirement balances regularly make their way into seven-figure territory, we've solidly entered a world of middle-class millionaires.

The S&P 500 is up 10% over the past month, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up only 5%. The main reason why: UnitedHealth Group.

Why it matters: This time last month, UnitedHealth was the highest-priced stock in the Dow, singlehandedly accounting for 9.2% of the index. The fall in the share price since then represents a drop of 1,938 Dow points, making it that much harder for the average as a whole to show solid gains.

Driving the news: UnitedHealth fell another 18% on Tuesday when its CEO abruptly resigned, citing "personal reasons." That means it's now down 48% in one month.

Between the lines: The Dow is always a bit lopsided.

• While UnitedHealth is now a more typical 4.5% of the average, Goldman Sachs has taken its place in the club of members trading at more than $600 per share.
• As a result, the investment bank, which is worth $185 billion, now comprises 8.7% of the Dow.
• By contrast, Nvidia, worth $3.19 trillion — that's 17 Goldmans — makes up just 1.9% of the average.

The bottom line: There's a good reason why very few people actually invest in the Dow.

Editor's note: This report was updated with stock price changes after Tuesday's close of trading.

Amid all the talk of what's happening to mortgage rates, it's often easy to lose sight of the fact that rates vary widely between lenders on any given day.

• That gap has grown significantly over the past couple years.

Why it matters: It's not easy to work out how attractive a mortgage rate is. Two offers from two different companies might have different headline rates, but might also vary on everything from origination fees and closing costs to the amount of money it costs to "buy points" and lower the interest rate paid.

• That makes apples-to-apples comparisons extremely difficult.

Follow the money: Americans will collectively pay $11 billion more than they needed to on their mortgages this year, per new research from Tomo Mortgage.

• Tomo studied about 1 million loans from more than 1,000 different lenders and normalized each one for rate points, credit, purchase price, and down payment.
• The difference between the best and worst rates offered on any given day worked out to $287 per month in mortgage payments on a home that sold for the median sale price.

Between the lines: The gap between the best and worst rates was regularly as low as 0.5 percentage points between 2018 and 2021, but then the Federal Reserve started hiking rates in 2022.

• These rate hikes sent mortgage rates soaring, which in turn pushed refinance activity close to zero, a major hit to the profitability of the mortgage sector.
• Some lenders responded by offering aggressive rates, Will Begeny from Tomo says, while others found themselves needing to pad their margins.
• As a result, the gap between the best and worst rates rose to more than 2 percentage points on some days in the fall of 2022. (It's now closer to 0.88 percentage points.)

Where it stands: Mortgage rates are still high in absolute terms, refinancing activity is low, and the difference between a good rate and a bad rate is much bigger than normal.

The bottom line: Shop around.

The papal conclave is a prayerful and devout attempt to discern the person whom the Holy Spirit is calling to be the next bishop of Rome.

• For those so inclined, it's also an opportunity to make money betting on the outcome.

Why it matters: Rarely do the sacred and profane clash more obviously than during periods of speculation surrounding a conclave.

The big picture: The idea of the wisdom of crowds — that a group will make better and wiser decisions than any individual — undergirds not only conclaves but also all democracies and public markets.

• The motivations behind such processes, however, vary wildly.

Follow the money: On Polymarket, the blockchain-based prediction market, the "Who will be the next Pope?" market has seen a modest $3 million in total volume. (The outcome of the Canadian election, by contrast, has seen more than $55 million in bets.)

• Going into this weekend, the "No new Pope in 2025" contract was considered the most likely outcome. It was trading at 66 cents on the dollar, implying a 2-in-3 chance that Francis would live out the year.
• Now, that contract has gone to zero, and the new favorites are Italy's Pietro Parolin, trading at 37 cents, and Luis Antonio Tagle, of the Philippines, trading at 26 cents.

Between the lines: It's highly unlikely that Pope Francis would have been amused by the financial speculation on his successor.

• He emphatically rejected what he called the "dogma of neoliberal faith" that the marketplace can solve every problem by means of the "invisible hand."
• To the contrary, he said, "financial speculation fundamentally aimed at quick profit continues to wreak havoc."

Flashback: Attempts to monetize the result of the conclave are nothing new.

• In 1591, Pope Gregory XIV forbade all betting on the election of the pope, under penalty of excommunication.
• That law, however, was abrogated in 1918, which means there is currently no canon law on the subject, per Edward Peters, a professor of canon law at Sacred Heart seminary in Detroit.

Where it stands: Betting markets don't have a great track record when it comes to predicting the next pope.

• In 2013, the favorites were Angelo Scola of Italy and Peter Turkson of Ghana. The eventual pope, Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina, was 15th in the running.
• As anybody who saw the 2024 movie "Conclave" can attest, the outcome of such meetings is by design largely unpredictable.
• As such, betting markets are unlikely to give a particularly accurate sense of the probabilities.

The bottom line: There are more than 130 cardinals, and the next pope could be any of them.

• None of them have a good idea of who the next pope will be — which means none of us do, either.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 527 points on Thursday, despite the fact that 20 of its 30 components actually rose in price. The culprit: UnitedHealth Group, whose $131 fall was singlehandedly responsible for an 805-point decline.

Why it matters: A single highly-priced stock, if it falls far enough, can now create a greater point drop in the Dow than the 508-point plunge that triggered panicked headlines around the world in 1987.

Follow the money: S&P Dow Jones Indices confirmed to Axios that the fall on Thursday represents the largest point impact for the DJIA on record.

Between the lines: The Dow is a weird beast, being an average and not an index. As such, a stock like UnitedHealth, which trades for more than $400 per share, has a significantly higher weighting than much more valuable companies like Apple or Nvidia.

The bottom line: If you care about what the stock market did Thursday, look to the S&P 500 (+0.1%) — and not to the Dow (-1.3%).

Global fund managers have turned startlingly pessimistic when it comes to the chances that the world will be able to withstand the effect of across-the-board U.S. tariffs — and they're particularly bearish when it comes to the U.S. itself.

Why it matters: The most recent Fund Manager Survey from Bank of America underscores the thesis that global investors are selling America.

By the numbers: The most recent survey, which was conducted between April 4 and April 10, included 164 global fund managers who collectively have $386 billion of assets under management.

• 49% of them said that a hard landing is now the most likely outcome for the global economy, up from 6% in February and 11% in March.
• The percentage of investors intending to cut their allocation to U.S. equities rose to the highest level since the survey began in 2001.
• Bank of America's fund manager sentiment index is now lower than it was even at the depths of the pandemic crash in 2020.

Zoom out: 82% of respondents said the global economy is set to weaken — that's a 30-year high.

• For the first time in over two years, the most crowded trade is no longer being long the "Magnificent 7" tech stocks. Instead, it's being long gold.

The bottom line: Institutional investors have very little risk tolerance right now. In practice, that means they're unlikely to get enthusiastic about companies making big investments — in the U.S. or anywhere else.

The White House is happy to pick fights with most of its allies, from Canada to Germany, but on Monday it singled out two Latin American countries — El Salvador and Argentina — for praise and support.

Why it matters: The meetings underscore the way in which the Trump administration likes to reward countries with right-wing leadership.

• In that sense, El Salvador and Argentina are the Latin American versions of Hungary and Slovakia in Europe.

Driving the news: While El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, the self-described "world's coolest dictator," was in the White House giving his full support to President Trump, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was down in Buenos Aires, greeting Argentine President Javier Milei with a big hug.

For the record: "Secretary Bessent affirmed the United States' full support for President Milei's bold economic reforms," the official readout of the meeting says. It describes how he "emphasized the United States' trust in President Milei to continue advancing Argentina's positive economic momentum."

Between the lines: Bukele and Milei are the avatars of a populist right in Latin America, taking every opportunity to make deals with Trump.

Where it stands: Argentina on Friday signed a $20 billion IMF deal that came with $12 billion up front, money desperately needed in a country struggling with anemic foreign reserves and an overvalued currency.

• As the largest IMF shareholder, the U.S. was critical to getting the deal approved. The deal lets Argentina float its currency, which promptly depreciated 11% to about 1,200 pesos to the dollar.
• That's actually toward the strong end of Argentina's new exchange rate band that keeps the number of pesos per dollar between 1,100 and 1,400.

Zoom in: Martin Guzman, a former finance minister of Argentina, said in a speech at the Vatican this month that the country's new IMF loan looks as though it was "politically motivated."

• If the IMF disburses such large amounts in the face of political pressure, he said, that will act to "compromise the fund's ability to fulfill its core mission."
• Yet Trump is openly flirting with leaving the IMF entirely. If that's really his intention, he's all the more likely to want to reward an ally on his way out.

What they're saying: A White House official tells Axios, "President Trump welcomes the IMF's loan to Argentina, which will support President Milei's groundbreaking and urgently needed economic reforms that will drive growth for Argentina and the region at large."

• "This moment also creates new opportunities to deepen the U.S.-Argentina partnership and shared prosperity."

The bottom line: If you want to be on good terms with Trump, it helps to be an iconoclastic populist right-winger.

With his new tariff announcement on Wednesday afternoon, President Trump has cemented his reputation for being unpredictable.

Why it matters: The markets like 10% tariffs more than they like the broad-brush application of a potentially erroneously calculated formula. But investors are still far from happy.

The big picture: The White House and its friends think of this as the art of the deal. (Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday it was Trump's intention all along.)

• America's trading partners, and U.S. companies that crave predictability aren't likely to see much art in it.

Where it stands: The S&P 500 closed at 5,455 on Wednesday, which is 3.8% below where it closed on April 2, before Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs were announced.

• The yield on the 10-year Treasury bond closed at 4.34%, similarly representing a flight away from U.S. assets in comparison to the April 2 closing level of 4.20%.

By the numbers: The new tariff regime represents a rise of about 15 percentage points overall, Goldman Sachs economists estimated on Wednesday — which means they still think there's a 45% probability of a recession this year.

• The Yale Budget Lab's Ernie Tedeschi, on the other hand, thinks the hike in China tariffs to 125% means the overall effective rate has still risen by about 25 percentage points, which is clearly recessionary.
• President Trump did say on Wednesday however that "a deal's going to be made with China," so it might be reasonable to expect the 125% tariff rate to not last long.

How it works: Recessions are broadly based on trends in gross domestic product (GDP). Imports by definition are not produced domestically and are therefore the one term in the GDP equation that's negative. Which is to say, all other things being equal, lower imports can mean higher GDP.

• That said, if tariffs are high enough, tariffs can be recessionary. Facing 10% across-the-board tariffs on everything they import, domestic corporations are likely to pull back on investment decisions, given greater uncertainty and higher input costs.

Between the lines: Many economists are still projecting economic growth this year, and any tariff-driven recession would probably be mild.

• "We are coming from strength," explains Loomis Sayles portfolio manager Pramila Agrawal.
• The last mild recession in the U.S. was in 2001, when employment and corporate investment both fell in the wake of the dot-com bust. There weren't crisis-level financial dislocations like we saw in 2008-09 or in 2020.

The intrigue: We've never lived in a world of anything remotely close to 125% tariffs on one of our largest trading partners, which means the effects of such things are incredibly hard to model.

• "Can you really make a distinction between a 50% tariff and 100% tariff?" asks Tom Porcelli, chief U.S. economist at PGIM Fixed Income.
• Even at 54%, the tariffs on China were big enough "to thrust people to the sidelines and to delay corporate investment decisions, whether that's investment in capital expenditures or investment in hiring," he says.
• The further move to 125% might have some effects on trade and inflation, but in terms of economic activity the marginal difference could be pretty small.
• Another unknown: The degree to which Chinese exports would end up entering the U.S. via other countries with lower tariffs.

The bottom line: We're deep into uncharted waters, and standard economic modeling kits were not made for a world of 125% tariffs — or, for that matter, of global tariffs that remain in place for a mere 13 hours before being lifted.

• That makes all economic predictions even less useful than they normally are.

The volatility we've seen in the markets this week is not unprecedented, but it's extremely rare, and has happened only four previous times since 1978.

Why it matters: This kind of noise is a sign that we've now entered a world of radical uncertainty, and that the markets are finding it impossible to do their main job, which is price discovery.

Flashback: Last Thursday, as the markets reacted to the tariffs unveiled the previous evening, the S&P 500's intraday trading range — the gap between the high and low points of the trading day — was a relatively modest 2%.

• Stocks opened down 3.1% and ground lower to close down 4.8%, in what looked like a large but orderly decline.

Where it stands: This week's trading has been very different, marked by wild intraday swings. The S&P 500% rose 8.3% in a mere 34 minutes on Monday. On Tuesday it opened up 4% and closed down 3%.

Between the lines: Stock market trading is increasingly dominated by multi-strategy "pod shops," and at the heart of most of them is "some sort of quant strategy," as hedge fund manager Krishna Kumar recently told the Odd Lots podcast.

• What that means in practice is a lot of short-term trades and a lot of leverage, both of which work to magnify both returns and volatility.
• Meanwhile, fundamentals-based long-term investors have essentially zero visibility into how the current tariff drama is going to play out.
• Without any strong conviction one way or the other, they're now hesitant to take losses or buy the dip, and they have therefore effectively ceded the role of price discovery to the algorithms.

What's next: What we haven't yet seen, says David Rolley, co-head of fixed income at Loomis Sayles, is "capitulation" by those real-money investors.

• While Rolley does see international investors in particular rotating out of U.S. assets, he says that process is likely to take years rather than days.

The bottom line: Previous bouts of massive volatility were associated with huge financial dislocations, or, in the case of the pandemic, the entire planet pretty much coming to a stop.

• This time around, though, the chaos is intentional.

America is a large, rich country with a sweet tooth. Madagascar is a small, poor country with an abundance of vanilla. There's therefore a natural trade to be made: They send us their precious pods, we send them the dollars they need for day-to-day necessities.

Why it matters: By the logic of the Trump administration's new tariff regime, that's not a natural trade at all.

• Instead, it's proof that tiny Madagascar is "picking on us" (to quote Commerce secretary Howard Lutnick on CNBC this morning) by selling us its natural riches.

Zoom in: As the US Trade Representative sees it, every trade deficit is the result of "tens of thousands of tariff, regulatory, tax and other policies" — rather than reflecting any natural differences in the wealth and patrimony of different countries.

• In the case of Madagascar, because it runs a trade surplus with the United States, it is being hit with a 47% tariff, not only on vanilla but also on everything else it exports to us.
• The stated aim is to find a tariff large enough to bring that deficit down to zero.
• Given that Madagascar has precious little need for U.S. exports, that means in practice that the tariff has to be big enough to stop Americans from consuming more than a thousand tons of vanilla every year.

The big picture: When nice things get more expensive, we consume less of them, or move to cheaper alternatives.

• We'll use synthetic instead of natural vanilla, we'll swap domestic beer for imported wine, we'll drink coffee made from robusta rather than arabica beans.
• The losers are the exporters, to be sure — they make fewer sales to Americans, although in general they'll just sell to other countries instead.
• But among the losers must also be counted the U.S. consumers who valued those everyday luxuries in the first place and are now forced to cut back.

What they're saying: "The new U.S. tariffs won't affect the reputation of Italian wines, which continue to be regarded as high-quality by American consumers," says Italian wine merchant Andrea Moradei of Vinarium.

• "However, the impact on demand will be significant," he adds.

The bottom line: The U.S. doesn't produce a lot of luxury goods for export. The French don't drink much California cabernet; the Scots rarely covet Kentucky bourbon.

• If Trump and Lutnick want to tariff their way to their stated aim of a trade balance of zero, then Americans are going to have to do much less of the one thing they're the best in the world at, which is consuming things.
• Sorry, cigar aficionados.

A truly enormous shock is needed to tip the entire global economy into recession. Since World War II, there have been two of these events: the financial crisis of 2008-09, and the coronavirus pandemic of 2020.

Why it matters: President Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs, if they stay in place and especially if they face retaliation from targeted nations, could be the third such economic earthquake in 17 years.

Follow the money: The U.S. imported $3.3 trillion of goods in 2024. That's more than $25,000 per household.

• If the new tariffs work out to an average of 29%, per Evercore, then U.S. importers would have to pay about $1 trillion in tariffs per year, or $7,300 per household.
• Realistically, that would never happen. Many goods will just not get imported any more, creating shortages and large price hikes.
• But if U.S. imports plunge, that would remove a key driver of the global economy, especially for export-dependent countries like Germany and China.

Zoom in: The total 54% tariff on imports from China is particularly punitive.

• China exports lots of high-tech goods like iPhones, but it's also the engine that provides affordable goods to millions of financially stretched families on low incomes.
• As such, the China tariff alone could cause a significant increase in poverty.

Zoom out: The last 75 years or so of globalization have created a complex web of interdependent economies, which explains sayings like "when the United States sneezes, Latin America catches pneumonia."

• If U.S. tariffs cause our major trading partners to slide into recession, that would devastate U.S. exports, which totaled $2.1 trillion in goods last year, plus another $1.1 trillion in services. And that's even before those partners start implementing retaliatory tariffs.
• "This is a game changer for the global economy," Fitch Ratings economist Olu Sonola wrote in a note Wednesday. "Many countries will likely end up in a recession."
• Others agreed. "These policies, if sustained, would likely push the U.S. and global economy into recession this year," JPMorgan analysts wrote in a note Wednesday.

Between the lines: Global stocks fell sharply on the Trump announcement, but not as much as they would have if they believed these tariffs will be fully implemented and will be here to stay.

• "One lesson from the first few months of the Trump presidency is you have to let news cure a little before you take it seriously," Matthew Hougan, chief investment officer at Bitwise Asset Management, tells Axios.

The bottom line: It's almost impossible to overstate the sheer magnitude of the announced tariffs, along with the degree to which they could devastate the global economy.

• Whether they really get implemented, however, remains to be seen.

Brady Dale contributed to this report.

One word you're going to hear a lot in coverage of budget negotiations is "baseline." It sounds simple enough — but in fact it's a slippery and contentious concept.

Why it matters: This wonkish terminological tussle is at heart a debate over what counts as zero, for the purposes of budgetary impact.

• Depending on where it ends up, it could raise America's debt-to-GDP ratio by 47 percentage points, per a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis released last Friday.

How it works: Congress, with its power of the purse, controls the U.S. fiscal trajectory. The big debate is over what the baseline for that trajectory is — or, to put it another way, what kind of legislation would have zero budgetary impact.

Zoom out: The whole concept of "budgetary impact," while relatively clear in terms of CBO scoring, is much gnarlier on a philosophical level.

• The insight was first formulated by Nelson Goodman, in his 1954 book "Fact, Fiction, and Forecast."
• Goodman shows that simply changing terms — in his case, from "green" to "grue," or in this case, from "law" to "policy" — can have an enormous effect on what we expect the future to look like.
• Any politician who successfully makes such a change would be "bamboozling the public," says Brian Skyrms, a philosopher at the University of California, Irvine, and Stanford University.

Where it stands: The CBO uses "current law" as its baseline — which is to say, it assumes that everything will continue according to the laws the Congress has already passed, unless they're changed.

• Current law, however, is discontinuous. Most of the tax cuts from President Trump's first term in office expire at the end of this year, and if Congress doesn't change that, the result will feel like a tax hike to most taxpayers.
• As a result, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and most Republicans, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, prefer the "current policy" baseline — where the tax code remains in its present form, without any mandated expirations.
• Were that current policy baseline in place, the Chamber writes, "merely avoiding a scheduled tax increase" would no longer "be considered to have a budgetary impact."

Yes, but: The current policy baseline increases deficits by about $4 trillion per year, per the CBO, while also resulting in lower GDP overall.

• The whole reason the tax cuts are scheduled to expire is that making them permanent would have been too expensive. (When the cuts were passed in 2017, Republicans also didn't expect that Trump would be president in 2025.)

Zoom in: Even a budget that the CBO would score as having $0 of impact would create trillions of dollars in deficits and an inexorably rising debt-to-GDP ratio that hits 156% in 2055, per projections released on Thursday.

• That's because the CBO uses "current law" as its baseline, and current law — even after the Trump tax cuts expire — spends much more than the IRS collects in tax revenue.

The bottom line: Congress has already chosen, for better or for worse, which baseline it wants to use — and that's current law.

• "If you're going to have a standard, the standard should be consistent," Kent Smetters, who runs the Penn Wharton Budget Model, tells Axios.
• "That standard does exist."

The highest-grossing show on Broadway isn't a musical, it's a play. "Good Night, And Good Luck" — starring George Clooney, and still in previews — brought in a staggering $3.3 million last week.

Why it matters: Unusually for Broadway, all three of the hottest draws — the shows with the highest ticket price — are plays, not musicals. They all star Oscar-winning actors.

• "Good Night, and Good Luck" smashed the previous record for a play ($2.8 million) that was set just last week by "Othello," starring Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal.

Between the lines: Broadway's biggest star is Audra McDonald — she has won a record six Tony awards for acting and will probably win a seventh for her breathtaking current performance in "Gypsy".

• That show grossed less than half as much last week as "Good Night, and Good Luck."

Follow the money: Back in 2001, the producers of "The Producers" were very careful about rolling out their $100 ticket price ($179 adjusted for inflation), "for fear of giving the impression of gouging," according to the NYT.

• These days, as the NYT's Michael Paulson reports, many upcoming performances of "Othello" are "asking $921 for the first 14 rows in the center orchestra."
• Those prices were described as "completely out of control" by the New York Post's Johnny Oleksinsky.

What's next: We'll probably see yet another new record next month, since "Good Night, And Good Luck" will play a normal slate of eight shows. This week's record was set by selling out just seven shows.

For the record: "Othello," which opened on Sunday, might be raking in the dough but received terrible reviews. The Wall Street Journal called it "dismal" and lacking in emotional power; Vulture said it's "passionless" "bad theater" that "barely even has a pulse."

Where it stands: Even off-Broadway plays with famous actors are charging nosebleed prices — as much as $449 to see Andrew Scott in "Vanya," or $435 to see Paul Mescal in "A Streetcar Named Desire."

• The only woman really in the mix is Sarah Snook, whose Olivier Award-winning performance in "The Picture of Dorian Gray" is so far commanding relatively modest grosses and average prices when compared to her male counterparts.

The more afraid immigrants are that the IRS will report them to immigration authorities, the less they may pay in taxes, experts warn.

Why it matters: Mere reports that the IRS might start sharing information, like this recent one from the Washington Post, are likely to significantly reduce tax collections, Carl Davis, research director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) tells Axios.

• A formal acknowledgment of any information-sharing protocol would hit collections even more.

Follow the money: Undocumented immigrants paid $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022, per ITEP.

• While much of that came in the form of sales and other taxes over which they have little control, about $57 billion is made up of "taxes that are likely to be prone to noncompliance," Davis says.
• Already, the compliance rate for undocumented immigrants is low, at about 60%. If that were to fall to, say, 30%, then the fiscal cost would be more than $28 billion a year, per ITEP.

Between the lines: If undocumented immigrants stop filing tax returns in fear that the IRS will pass on their information to immigration authorities, that could actually increase total tax revenues this year, as the government holds onto withheld money that would otherwise be returned as a tax refund.

• Over the medium term, however, says Davis, undocumented immigrants in fear of the immigration authorities are likely to move out of any job where their employer withholds taxes and reports their pay to the IRS — and work instead in more cash-based, informal sectors.
• Because those jobs are generally lower-paid, even gains like sales tax revenues would likely decrease.
• Self-employed undocumented immigrants will also be much less likely to file tax returns, after many years in which they have been encouraged to do so on the explicit promise that their personal information would not be shared with the rest of the government.

Zoom out: "There's a general increase in fear around deportation, independent of anything going on with IRS tax return data," notes Davis.

• "That's likely to lead to people trying to retreat from government view, and, in general, wanting to find situations where they're less visible to government authorities."

For the record: The IRS did not respond to a request for comment.

• Historically, it has kept personal tax information highly confidential, unavailable even to the people running the agency.

The bottom line: The greater the crackdown on undocumented immigrants, the greater the fiscal hit — even putting aside the obvious loss of tax revenue from all immigrants who are deported or otherwise leave the country.

Donald Trump is building a reputation for himself as the flip-flopper in chief — the president who, after announcing a bold new policy today, is more than likely to reverse it tomorrow.

Why it matters: In a chaotic and unpredictable world, the federal government normally acts as a stabilizing force. Under Trump, it has become the primary driver of the chaos.

The big picture: Across-the-board tariffs on Mexico and Canada — two of America's three largest trading partners — have been on and then off and then on and then off. Colombia knows the feeling.

• The government put 80 million square feet of its real estate up for sale, only to then take the "for sale" sign down.
• Trump has fired federal employees at the CDC, the FDA, the National Nuclear Security Administration, and the Department of Agriculture, only to then re-hire them.
• He touted the use of military aircraft to carry out high-profile deportations, only to suspend the flights after finding them costly and inefficient.

For the record: "This is the art of the deal," a White House spokesman tells Axios about the tariff reversals, adding that the General Services Administration and individual agencies, rather than Trump himself, are responsible for other executive-branch actions.

• Elon Musk is also distancing himself from the firings of federal workers.

Flashback: In a matter of days, Trump denounced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, then made up and invited him to Washington, then chastised him in the Oval Office, then expressed openness to rebuilding ties, then cut off arms and intelligence sharing.

Zoom in: Republicans in Congress have repeatedly found themselves boxed in by Trump's flip-flops.

• He spent weeks equivocating on whether Congress should pass his agenda in one bill or two — then blindsided the Senate by backing House Republicans' one-bill approach.
• He promised not to cut Medicaid, then backed a House GOP budget plan that could force exactly that in order to meet its proposed spending cuts.
• He has vowed to achieve the unthinkable by balancing the budget — while endorsing trillions of dollars in tax cuts, plus new campaign promises like no tax on tips or overtime.

Follow the money: The stock market, for one, is tiring of such shenanigans. On Wednesday, stocks fell on news that tariffs were being imposed — and then on Thursday, when those tariffs were suspended, stocks fell again.

• Foreign investors like French energy company Engie are on the record as saying that they need clarity and predictability in order to invest in the U.S. — something that's clearly missing at the moment.
• "I'm not even looking at the market," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Thursday, disavowing his longtime favorite metric for economic success.

Zoom out: In crypto, a rug-pull is any project that's announced and then abandoned — often at great expense to anybody who believed the initial announcement.

Between the lines: Elon Musk — who may or may not be the head of DOGE, depending on who you ask — is at least partially responsible for the administration's "move fast and break things" ethos.

• "We will make mistakes. We won't be perfect. But when we make a mistake, we'll fix it very quickly," Musk said in a Cabinet meeting last week, pointing to the reversed cancellation of Ebola funding.
• DOGE has made plenty of mistakes, but has not always been transparent about fixing them — quietly pulling down billions of dollars from its online "wall of receipts" on multiple occasions.

The bottom line: This is just exhausting.

Donald Trump famously believes that "trade wars are good, and easy to win," as he tweeted in 2018. The market, however, believes the opposite: That a trade war is bad, is easy to lose, and could plunge the U.S. into an avoidable recession.

Why it matters: Trump 1.0 listened to the market. Trump 2.0 is very different.

• Traders are no longer convinced they can rely on the "Trump put," the idea that the president will reverse course on policies the market doesn't like.

What they're saying: The clearest articulation of the Trump administration's attitude to the market came from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

• "Wall Street's done great," he said Tuesday, "but we have a focus on small business and the consumers. So we are going to rebalance the economy."

Between the lines: Bessent singled out "the level of the 10-year bond" as "one of the biggest wins for the American people."

• A former macro hedge fund manager, Bessent knows the decline in long-term interest rates is a function of pessimism about future growth, and expectations that the Fed is going to have to keep rates low to stimulate employment.

By the numbers: On February 11, the market put just a 1% probability on the Fed cutting rates four times this year, assuming each cut is 25 basis points.

• Today, the probability of at least four cuts has risen to 30%. The probability of three or more rate cuts has ballooned to 62%.
• Given the stubbornness of inflation, which is likely to become even more stubborn as higher tariffs start to bite, the only reason for the Fed to cut that many times would be a significant economic slowdown, or perhaps even a recession.

The big picture: There is "a new reality of higher domestic prices and weaker growth, owing to Trump's tariff measures," George Vessey, the lead macro strategist at Convera, wrote in a note.

• That in turn is causing the dollar to weaken, which is the opposite of what should happen when tariffs rise, according to textbook economics.
• It's true that all things equal, U.S. tariffs should cause the dollar to strengthen, as fewer dollars get sold to pay for imports.
• But these tariffs are so big, and so potentially damaging to the U.S. economy, that — according to foreign exchange markets — domestic macroeconomic effects are likely to dwarf the effects of capital flows.

Zoom out: The dollar has historically benefited from "safe haven" status. It's a reliable store of value during volatile times.

• When the president of the United States is the person causing all the volatility, however, the dollar looks less attractive on that front.

The bottom line: The stock market is not the economy, especially when it's dominated by megacap tech companies.

• But there are many other indicators of where the markets think the economy is headed, and all of them are flashing "very worried."

President Trump imposed sweeping tariffs Tuesday on America's largest trading partners, triggering a global trade war that promises to affect the wallets of everyday Americans.

Why it matters: After running — and winning — on a promise to curb inflation, Trump's trade war threatens to raise prices for everything from food and clothes to cars and computers.

• Some estimates suggest just Tuesday's tariffs alone could cost the average U.S. household $830 a year — and that's before you factor in the cost of anticipated retaliatory tariffs from Canada, China and Mexico.
• Already, the impacts are escalating — the map above, for example, was based on a 10% China tariff, which has now been raised to 20%.

Tariffs on the top U.S. import partners

Zoom out: More than 40% of all U.S. imports come from Mexico, Canada and China — over $1.3 trillion worth in 2024 alone, per Census data.

• The tariffs will affect big-ticket items like machinery and cars, but also consumer staples — everything from beer (more than 80% of U.S. imports come from Mexico) to oats (almost all U.S. imports come from Canada).

Tariffs as a regressive tax

Zoom in: Tariffs are generally regressive, in that they more heavily affect lower-income people who spend a greater share of their resources on goods, particularly necessities like food and fuel.

• As data from the Progressive Policy Institute shows, even before Trump's new levies this week, the existing U.S. tariff system already charged much higher rates for low-cost products than their luxury counterparts.

The China trade deficit

Between the lines: Tariffs, especially on China, do move the needle on trade a little, but over time it tends to rebound.

• The trade deficit with China has been more than $200 billion for 20 years now, and Chinese retaliatory tariffs will offset some of the benefit of the new duties Trump assessed.

Fentanyl realities

The intrigue: In assessing tariffs on Canada and Mexico in particular, Trump cited the flow of fentanyl across both borders.

Yes, but: As U.S. Customs and Border Protection data shows, over the last 40 months, fentanyl volume that's trafficked through Mexico is almost 1,000x the amount coming through Canada.

• In January 2025 alone, CBP stopped almost half a ton of fentanyl at the Mexican border — and about half an ounce at the Canadian border.

The next tariffs

What to watch: The tariffs are a long way from over — the White House has made clear more are coming, and they'll stack up on top of each other.

• Steel and aluminum tariffs come in next week, which will particularly impact automakers and beverage companies, among others.
• Reciprocal tariffs on April 2 could affect dozens of countries, with as-yet unknown impacts on almost everything the country imports.

Go deeper: Tariff worries, Trump cuts signal emerging economic growth risks

Editor's Note: This story has been updated with additional details on the tariff map.

President Trump has proposed abolishing the EB-5 visa for immigrants willing to invest in the U.S., and replacing it with a "gold card" that, he said, could see enough demand to eliminate the national debt.

Why it matters: For all of Trump's debt-busting dreams, realistic demand for any such program is likely to be in the thousands of people, not the millions.

• Indeed, according to experts, when it comes to "golden visas" there could be more demand from Americans looking to emigrate than there is from non-Americans looking to immigrate.

Where it stands: The gold card is designed to replace the EB-5 investor visa, which gives out green cards in return for investment in the U.S. economy.

• The minimum cost of an EB-5 ranges from $800,000 to $1.05 million, substantially all of which takes the form of an investment and thus doesn't reduce the applicant's net worth.
• Between 2017 and 2024, an average of 8,823 EB-5s were issued per year, per the EB-5 visa data dashboard.

Between the lines: Trump's proposed gold card costs five times as much as an EB-5 — $5 million — and the money would go straight to the government, where it could help reduce the national debt.

Flashback: Both the U.K. and Australia have tried similar "golden visa" programs. Both were wound down after interest peaked at a few hundred applications per year, said London School of Economics professor Kristin Surak, author of "The Golden Passport: Global Mobility for Millionaires."

• "If it's a donation, the interest will be in the very low thousands per year," Surak told Axios.

Zoom in: Anybody with a "gold card" would be obligated to pay U.S. tax on their global income, said Atossa Araxia Abrahamian, author of "The Hidden Globe: How Wealth Hacks the World."

• That makes U.S. tax residence significantly less attractive to the global ultra-rich than most other jurisdictions.
• Besides, Abrahamian noted, the trade in golden visas from places like Portugal and Malta, both E.U. member states, has been going on for long enough that most ultra-rich people who want one already have one.

Zoom out: When it comes to the global market in golden visas, "one of the most remarkable changes in the past few years is the huge increase in interest from U.S. citizens" looking to gain residence in countries like Portugal, according to Surak.

• "People are looking to secure access to the U.S.," she said, "but U.S. citizens are also looking to hedge their bets and secure a Plan B elsewhere."

The bottom line: It's very unlikely that there would be more demand for the gold card than there is right now for the EB-5, to say nothing of enough for Trump's $50 trillion goal.

Who's going to be left holding the $400 billion bag? That's the ultimate question that undergirds the debate over the future of the post office.

Why it matters: The U.S. Postal Service suffers under a system of pension obligations that is seen at no private company and in no other government department.

• But there's also historically been no appetite in Congress to fix this longstanding problem.

Driving the news: The White House on Friday denied a Washington Post report that President Trump intended to dissolve the USPS board and take control of the Post Office — but Trump did say that he wanted some kind of Commerce Department "merger" that would ensure the agency "doesn't lose massive amounts of money."

The big picture: Per a comprehensive report that was released last year by the USPS inspector general, the Post Office ended fiscal year 2022 with pension and healthcare liabilities of $409 billion — against assets of just $290 billion.

• Retirement costs alone make up about 12% of the USPS's total expenses — but the Post Office has no control over where that money goes, how it's invested, or how it's disbursed.

By the numbers: The Post Office has more than 700,000 retirees and survivors collecting benefits — and employs more than 500,000 people who will collect pensions in the future.

• The agency pays $10 billion per year into federal pension programs it doesn't control.
• That money is invested extremely conservatively, with a 100% allocation to Treasury bonds. As a result, the funds actually lost money, in real terms, in both the 2021 and 2022 fiscal years.
• According to the inspector general's report, the $155 billion deficit in the Post Office's retirement funds at the end of fiscal 2021 would have been a $963 billion surplus if that money had been invested in a standard portfolio of 60% stocks and 40% bonds since inception.

The intrigue: Other federal agencies receive money from Congress to make required employer contributions; the Post Office doesn't.

• Private pension plans, and even some government plans, including the National Railroad Retirement Investment Trust and the Retirement System for Tennessee Valley Authority, are allowed to invest their money in stocks and other assets that provide higher long-term returns than Treasury bonds. The Post Office isn't.

The bottom line: More than a million workers have some kind of Post Office pension. Who's going to pay them that money, and where it's going to come from, will ultimately determine the fiscal viability of the Post Office as a business.