Hormuz Opens, Big Banks Print Records, TSMC +58% on AI, Chainlink Unlocks 2T Euros in Swiss Equities, Solana and XRP ETFs Keep Pulling Flows

The Week In Markets: Apr 12 to Apr 18

The week of April 12-18, 2026 delivered one of the most consequential risk-on repricings of the year. The dominant theme was the collapse of the Iran-linked oil premium: after a weeklong Hormuz blockade standoff, Iran's Foreign Minister declared the strait "completely open" on Friday, crashing WTI 11.5% to $83.78 and catapulting the Dow 1,005 points to a record close. Underneath the geopolitical headline, Q1 bank earnings printed the cleanest set of numbers in years, TSMC reconfirmed the AI supercycle with a 58% profit surge, and crypto infrastructure took a leap forward as Chainlink brought 2 trillion euros of Swiss and Spanish equities on-chain.

The S&P 500 broke above 7,100 for the first time ever, the Nasdaq printed fresh all-time highs, Bitcoin held the $75K shelf, and the Magnificent Seven extended their March gains. Below is the week's real story, not just the prices.

Top Stock Stories of the Week

1. Big Bank Earnings Blow Out Estimates Across the Board

Q1 2026 bank earnings were unambiguously strong. JPMorgan reported net income of $16.49 billion ($5.94 EPS) on revenue of $50.54 billion (+10% YoY), with fixed income trading up 21% to $7.08 billion and investment banking fees up 28% to $2.88 billion. Citigroup delivered its best quarterly revenue in a decade with EPS surging 56% YoY; fixed income pulled in $5.2 billion (+13%) and equities hit a record $2.1 billion (+39%), the highest quarterly trading haul since the financial crisis.

Goldman Sachs topped the leaderboard with EPS of $17.55 (+24% YoY), ROE of 19.8%, and an 89% jump in merger advisory fees. Morgan Stanley and Bank of America both beat on record trading revenue, BofA profits +17%. Wells Fargo was the only soft print, missing on revenue and NII. The takeaway: the volatility windfall from Q1 geopolitics turned every trading desk into a printing press, and the M&A cycle has officially re-accelerated after 18 months of quiet.

2. TSMC Q1 Profit Surges 58% -- AI Demand Still Outrunning Supply

TSMC reported Q1 revenue of $35.9 billion (+40.6% YoY) and net income of NT$572.48 billion (+58% YoY), the fourth consecutive quarter of record profits. CEO CC Wei told analysts AI demand "continues to be extremely robust" and the company lifted full-year 2026 revenue growth guidance above 30% in USD terms. HPC and AI now represent 61% of total TSMC revenue, up from roughly 40% two years ago, and the company is breaking ground on a new advanced fab in Tainan to catch up with demand. TSMC also projected Q2 revenue of $39 billion-$40.2 billion, a 10% sequential jump.

3. Netflix Beats Q1, Crashes 10.8% on Guidance -- Reed Hastings Exits Chairman Seat

Netflix posted Q1 revenue of $12.25 billion (+16.19% YoY) and EPS of $1.23 versus $0.78 consensus, a 58% earnings surprise. The market rejected the beat: shares fell 10.8% to $96.20 Friday as Q2 guidance implied deceleration to 13.5% growth, and Reed Hastings simultaneously announced he is stepping down as chairman after 29 years. Two negative signals stacked on a technical beat gave traders all the reason they needed to take profits. For a detailed breakdown of the Netflix print, see Friday's news roundup.

4. Tesla Tapes Out AI5 Chip -- 5x AI4 Performance, Samsung and TSMC Fabs

Elon Musk confirmed on April 15 that Tesla has taped out AI5, finalizing the design and sending it to foundry. A single AI5 delivers 5x the useful compute of two AI4 chips, total system performance in the 2,000-2,500 TOPS range versus 300-500 TOPS on AI4. Initial production targets Optimus robotics and Tesla's supercomputer clusters, not FSD, and high-volume manufacturing is slated for 2027 at Samsung and TSMC US fabs. TSLA rallied 15% on the week, leading the Magnificent Seven. Vertical integration in AI compute is now Tesla's structural moat, independent of FSD execution.

5. Nvidia Launches Ising -- First Open-Source Quantum AI Models

On April 14 Nvidia released Ising, an open Apache-2.0 AI model family for quantum processor calibration and error correction. The headline numbers: 2.5x faster and 3x more accurate decoding than traditional approaches, with a 35-billion-parameter vision-language model that automates calibration workflows from days to hours. Ising is already adopted by Fermilab, Harvard SEAS, IQM, Infleqtion, Lawrence Berkeley, and the UK National Physical Laboratory. NVDA notched 11 consecutive up days during the week, a new record, even as peers like ASML fell 6% on China export tightening.

Top Crypto Stories of the Week

1. Chainlink (LINK) Brings 2 Trillion Euros of Swiss and Spanish Equities On-Chain with SIX

Chainlink announced the largest equities tokenization deal in crypto history on April 16: a partnership with SIX Exchange to bring over 2 trillion euros of European equities on-chain, covering Swiss and Spanish markets. The tokenization extends across 75+ public and private blockchains including Ethereum, Solana, Base, BNB Chain, Avalanche, Polygon, and Hyperliquid. Chainlink also upgraded its Data Streams infrastructure on April 12 to push real-time US stock and ETF prices onchain, further fusing TradFi with DeFi. LINK traded around $9-10 all week, consolidating for a potential breakout above $10.

2. XRP Lists on Rakuten Wallet -- 44 Million Users, 5 Million Merchant Locations

Rakuten Wallet listed XRP for spot trading and payments on April 15, giving 44 million Rakuten Pay users the ability to convert loyalty points into XRP and spend at over 5 million merchant locations across Japan. XRP investment products separately pulled in $119.6 million in net inflows the prior week, the strongest since December 2025, with nearly all of it coming from European funds. XRP outperformed BTC, ETH, and SOL with a 4% gain into the weekend, closing around $1.49, and open interest on derivatives is climbing. Combined with the SEC/CFTC March classification of XRP as a digital commodity, the regulatory and adoption tailwinds are stacking.

3. Avalanche (AVAX) Inks South Korea Payments Partnership with NHN KCP

On April 14, Korean payments processor NHN KCP and Ava Labs announced a partnership to build a custom payments blockchain on Ava Cloud. The chain targets sub-second finality, on-chain data encryption, tokenized deposits, and cross-border payments -- an enterprise payment rail rather than a retail chain. The deal is a meaningful institutional win for Avalanche, which traded in the $8.50-$10 range during the week, and keeps AVAX competitive in the layer-1 deal-flow race against SOL, APT, and SUI.

4. Solana (SOL) ETF Inflows Cross 900M USD Cumulative -- Alpenglow Upgrade Ahead

US spot Solana ETFs, live since late October 2025 and now offered by Bitwise, Grayscale, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, 21Shares, VanEck, and Canary Capital, crossed $900 million in cumulative inflows by early March and have continued adding AUM through April. Fee competition has compressed expense ratios to 0.19%-0.50%. SOL traded around $86-$90 on the week with focus building toward the Alpenglow / SIMD-0266 protocol upgrade which targets sub-second finality and is queued for activation later in 2026. SEC fast-track approval rules (the new 75-day timeline replacing the old 240-day process) mean more altcoin ETF launches are pending through Q2.

5. Dogecoin (DOGE), Shiba Inu (SHIB), Aptos (APT), and Sui (SUI) -- Meme vs Utility Split

DOGE options volume exploded 256% into the weekend as Polymarket odds for $0.10 reached 59%. SHIB burn rate spiked 237% in 24 hours on April 11 with millions of tokens removed, though Steve Aoki publicly exited his SHIB bag signaling fading meme appetite. On the utility side, Aptos was included in the SEC's March 17 digital-commodity classification (alongside BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP, DOGE, ADA, AVAX, LINK, DOT, HBAR, LTC, BCH, SHIB, XLM, XTZ), and Sui / Near Protocol both hold institutional interest as layer-1 infrastructure plays for 2026. Bitcoin held $75,428 into the weekend with $450M of sell orders in the $75,500-$76,500 zone; Ethereum consolidated near $2,330-$2,440.

M&A, Partnerships, Deals

M&A activity confirmed the dealmaking thaw. Goldman's 89% jump in merger advisory fees and JPMorgan's 28% IB fee surge are the two cleanest prints of the cycle. Beyond the banks, the week saw: Meta committing to 1GW of custom Broadcom AI chips (Hock Tan leaves Broadcom's board to align incentives); Samsung SDS shares jumping 20% on a KKR partnership plus an $820M bond purchase; NHN KCP and Ava Labs partnering on a Korean payments chain; Chainlink and SIX tokenizing 2T euros of European equities. Even ASML's 6% drop tells a deal story in reverse -- tighter China export controls are forcing strategic capex reshuffles across the semiconductor supply chain. Snap announced a 16% workforce reduction citing AI-driven efficiency, joining the broader pattern of leaner headcount at "AI-first" companies.

Regulatory and Macro

The regulatory backdrop finished the week firmly constructive. The SEC's March 17 joint rule with CFTC classifying BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP, DOGE, ADA, AVAX, LINK, DOT, HBAR, LTC, BCH, SHIB, XLM, XTZ, and APT as digital commodities continued to unlock institutional flow. Europe's MiCA framework is fully operational. The FHFA's directive ordering Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to prepare to count crypto as a mortgage asset is a structural US policy shift that will play out over 12-24 months.

On the macro side, the April 28-29 FOMC meeting looms as the single largest catalyst. CME FedWatch prices an 86% probability of a hold at the current 3.50%-3.75% target range, with Wall Street consensus now leaning toward June for the next cut. The main risk is a hawkish hold: if the statement and press conference push back on market-priced 2026 cuts, Treasury yields and the dollar would spike and the equity/crypto rally would stall. Separately, March CPI landed at 3.3% earlier in the month, and the April CPI print (late April) will be the final data point the Fed sees before June. Goldman, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan all flagged 2026 tax reform uncertainty and trade policy as the lingering overhangs.

Week Ahead: What to Watch

• Mon Apr 20: Leading Economic Index (March) and early Fed speaker cycle -- watch for hawkish messaging that could reprice the April 29 hold probabilities
• Tue Apr 21 -- Thu Apr 24: Big Tech earnings parade begins; AMD, SAP, and chip/software mid-caps lead the post-TSMC read-through on AI capex
• Wed Apr 23: US flash PMI (S&P Global) Manufacturing and Services -- first post-Hormuz read on demand, risk is a downside surprise on services
• Tue-Wed Apr 28-29: FOMC statement, dot plot not updated, press conference at 2:30pm ET April 29 -- the single largest catalyst through mid-May for equities, Treasuries, and crypto