Markets Update

Stocks were higher again last week, which made for the first back-to-back weekly gains since January. The more impressive stat: We just went 9 straight up days for the S&P, the longest such streak since 2004. We are now back to levels at / slightly above the early April crash following Trump’s initial tariff announcement. That’s an +17% move off the lows in 22 trading days (first chart below). April saw US equity market volumes average ~19billion shares/day for the month, and included the 4 most active days in the history of the US stock market, in terms of volume traded. Total roller coaster, all month long. It does feel like many are left to question where to go from here given the speed of the recovery:

The most obvious talking point on the bounce is deescalating trade & tariff tensions. Last Tuesday, Trump signed an order confirming temporary relief for US automakers. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been consistently talking up ongoing negotiations, with all signs pointing to concessions being made with the vast majority of trade partners. Even China, where the bulk of the focus has been as it relates to an actual ‘trade war’, signaled at the end of last week that they are ready to begin legitimate discussions with the US on future trade agreements.

It was also a week of better-than-expected economic data last week. The April payrolls report was a beat, ISM manufacturing was firmer, and the March Core PCE (inflation reading) was cooler. Also, pending home sales showed their strongest print since 2023. All of that said, the closely watched consumer confidence reading continued to show unease, in fact it now sits at the lowest level since the spring of 2020. Think about that for a second- consumers are reflecting a sense of worry right now, that compares to a time when the entire world was basically shut down (peak Covid, Apr ’20)… Seems strange to me, and commentary from tons of companies this earnings season so far doesn’t match that sentiment. On that note, 1Q25 earnings so far has mostly consisted of solid beats and only a modest slowing in earnings growth from 13.5% in Q4 to 10.2% in Q1.

Consumer confidence chart below for a full visual:

Earnings season rolls on this week, with another 92 members of the S&P 500 set to report in the next 4 days, though we are past most of the megacap names that are typically more closely watched & market-moving events (i.e. AAPL, AMZN, MSFT & META all reported in a 2-day span last week). We will however hear from Uber, Palantir, Disney, Ford, Electronic Arts and plenty more.

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