Market completes tariff pivot

Nine days and counting.

That’s where the S&P 500’s (SPX) current run of up days stood as of Friday—its longest streak since 2004. And despite logging its third-straight down month last Wednesday, the index also posted back-to-back up weeks for the first time since January, riding solid tech earnings, cool inflation data, a strong jobs report—and a lack of tariff drama.

While the market enjoyed its biggest up day of the week on Friday, Wednesday may have been a more pivotal day—literally. After falling to a four-day low early in the session after a negative surprise from the initial Q1 GDP estimate, the market reversed to the upside after the PCE Price Index showed inflation had cooled last month:

The headline: Market erases tariff sell-off.

The fine print: Friday’s solid jobs report didn’t just top the consensus estimate for payrolls (177,000 vs. 133,000), it also ran counter to all the soft labor-market data that preceded it last week—lower jobs listings, weak ADP private payrolls, and a jump in weekly jobless claims. However, the previous month’s payrolls total was revised sharply lower, from 228,000 to 185,000.

The number: 4, the number of “Magnificent 7” stocks that have so far topped earnings estimates and rallied after their announcements. The exceptions, both on Friday: Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN). NVIDIA (NVDA) is scheduled to announce earnings on May 28.

The scorecard: The Nasdaq 100 (NDX) tech index posted the week’s biggest gain:

Sector returns: The strongest S&P 500 sectors last week were industrials (+4.5%), communication services (+4.3%), and tech (+4%). The weakest sectors were energy (-0.6%), health care (+0.4%), and consumer staples (+1.3%).

Stock moves: Oddity Tech (ODD) +30% to $61.44 on Wednesday, Cooper-Standard (CPS) +44% to $21.88 on Friday. On the downside, GeneDx (WGS) -43% to $66.85 on Wednesday, Hamilton Beach Brands (HBB) -23% to $15.21 on Thursday.

Yields: Bond prices fell last week as yields climbed, mostly on Friday. The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield rose 0.06% to 4.32%.

US dollar: The US Dollar Index (DXY) ended the week up 0.56 at 100.03.

Futures: June gold (GCM5) closed Friday near a two-week low of $3,240.73, down $57.67 for the week. June WTI crude oil (CLM5) fell $4.73 last week, closing Friday at a new contract low of $58.29. Biggest up moves: June natural gas (NGM5) +17.1%, June milk (DCM5) +4.3%. Biggest down moves: June WTI crude oil (CLM5) -7.8%, July Brent crude oil (BN5) -7.1%.

The FOMC meeting and interest rate announcement headline this week’s economic calendar:

●Monday: S&P Global Services PMI, ISM Services Index
●Tuesday: trade deficit
●Wednesday: Fed interest rate decision, consumer credit
●Thursday: productivity and labor costs, wholesale inventories

Here are a few highlights from the busiest week of earnings season—more than 1,500 scheduled releases:

●Monday: Axsome Therapeutics (AXSM), BioNTech (BNTX), ON Semiconductor (ON), Tyson Foods (TSN), Clorox (CLX), Ford (F), Mattel (MAT), Palantir (PLTR)
●Tuesday: Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Datadog (DDOG), Global Payments (GPN), WK Kellogg (KLG), Lemonade (LMND), Arista Networks (ANET), Cirrus Logic (CRUS), Super Micro Computer (SMCI), Teradata (TDC),Tempus AI (TEM),Upstart (UPST)
●Wednesday: Disney Walt (DIS), Barrick Gold (GOLD), Novo-Nordisk (NVO), Rockwell Automation (ROK), Turning Point Brands (TPB), Uber (UBER), Verisk Analytics (VRSK), AppLovin (APP), Avis Budget (CAR), Carvana (CVNA), DoorDash (DASH), IonQ (IONQ), Occidental Petroleum (OXY), SanDisk (SNDK)
●Thursday: Anheuser Busch InBev (BUD), ConocoPhillips (COP), Match Group (MTCH), Restaurant Brands (QSR), Shopify (SHOP), Spectrum Brands (SPB), Molson Coors (TAP), Tapestry (TPR), Coinbase (COIN), Dropbox (DBX), Lyft (LYFT), MP Materials (MP), The Trade Desk (TTD), Yelp (YELP)
●Friday: Ubiquiti (UI)

Check the Active Trader Commentary each morning for an updated list of earnings announcements, IPOs, economic reports, and other market events.

The SPX ended last week right around the level it was before the April 2 tariff announcement, and the market’s robust rebound over the past couple of weeks likely surprised as many traders and investors as the initial tariff sell-off did.

Just as that drop could be described as “overdone” only in hindsight, there’s no way to know whether the same could be said about the rebound. Certainly nine-day (or longer) runs are rare—there have been only 23 others over the past 68 years. The following chart shows the SPX’s performance five, 10, 15, and 20 trading days (one week to roughly one month) after these streaks. The green columns represent the median post-streak returns, while the blue columns are benchmarks—the median returns for all of the SPX’s five-, 10-, 15-, and 20-day returns since 1957:

Overall, the market didn’t appear to lose much momentum after posting nine-straight up days. The only exception was slight underperformance at the 10-day mark, when the median return after the nine-day runs was slightly lower than the benchmark. The greatest outperformance occurred after 15 trading days, when the median return after runs was more than a half-percentage-point higher than the benchmark 15-day return.¹

Of course, these are composite results—there were a wide range of individual outcomes. In one case the SPX was 6.9% lower 15 trading days after a nine-day win streak. The path the market follows this time will likely depend on progress on the tariff front and confidence that the economy isn’t on a path to recession or stagflation.

Click here to log on to your account or learn more about E*TRADE's trading platforms, or follow the Company on X (Twitter), @ETRADE, for useful trading and investing insights.

¹ All figures reflect S&P 500 (SPX) daily closing prices, 1957-2004. Supporting document available upon request.