The S&P 500 and Nasdaq kept their record rallies going. Here are 3 key takeaways
Yet another record week for stocks. Strong first-quarter earnings and a war-driven spike in oil made for another historic week on Wall Street. Investors also made sense of a spate of economic data and the Federal Reserve’s latest interest rate decision. The S & P 500 and Nasdaq Composite gained 0.9% and 1.1%, respectively, over the last five sessions. Both indexes closed at records three times (Monday, Thursday and Friday). Thursday also marked the end of April trading, which was the S & P 500 and Nasdaq’s best month since 2020. It was the fifth straight week of gains for both indexes. The blue-chip Dow was up 0.55% for the week, but all those gains came Thursday; it finished in the red on the other four days. It’s unclear if stocks can keep up this magnificent run into next week, when the collection of companies reporting earnings is more diverse and at risk of disappointing . Until then, here are three takeaways from the past five trading sessions. Oil didn’t scare investors out of stocks Oil prices spiked as Wall Street monitored the latest Middle East developments. In the first few weeks of the war, the two mostly had an inverse relationship. But concerns around the Strait of Hormuz closure and supply disruptions aren’t driving investors out of equities quite like they did in March. Just look at Monday’s trading. International benchmark Brent and U.S. oil standard West Texas Intermediate both jumped after President Donald Trump scrapped plans for ceasefire talks with Iran over the weekend. The S & P 500 and Nasdaq still managed to close at record highs on Monday. Thursday is another example. Brent hit a four-year high following media reports that the U.S. military would brief the president on potential action against Iran. That same day, both indexes hit their second record close for the week. What really captivated Wall Street, though, was corporate earnings. Although a ton of Club names reported last week, Wednesday was the standout. Meta Platforms , Microsoft , Alphabet and Amazon all released results on the same night. Strong earnings, mixed reactions Each company reported a top and bottom line beat, but their stock reactions told a different story. Microsoft’s quarter couldn’t dispel concerns about the viability of its seat-based business model for its Office suite. The stock dropped nearly 4% Thursday after the results. It’s not surprising because Microsoft has been caught up in the “sell software” trade, which has weighed on Club name Salesforce as well. Jim Cramer said there is no need to buy the dip in Microsoft, describing the quarter as “not joyous.” We’re staying long for now because it wasn’t all bad. Microsoft’s forecast for Azure growth looked strong. Microsoft clawed back some of Thursday’s losses on Friday, adding 1.6%. Amazon shares gained an unassuming 0.8% Thursday. That belies the strength of its results. The company is firing on all cylinders. The e-commerce and cloud computing giant delivered its highest operating margin across all segments to date. Amazon Web Services experienced its fastest growth rate in 15 quarters. We raised our price target to $300 from $250 and kept our buy-equivalent 1 rating on the stock, which added 1.2% on Friday to a fresh record close. Meta plunged 8.55% Thursday after the Instagram parent raised its capital expenditures outlook by $10 billion at the midpoint. The stock also lost 0.5% on Friday. The market does not like the extra spending because Meta has already poured billions into generative AI, and investors are questioning whether the company has shown enough to justify it. Unlike Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet, Meta lacks a public cloud offering. Nevertheless, Jim said the post-earnings decline wasn’t enough reason to get out of the stock. He still has faith in CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Plus, Meta posted its best revenue growth in five years and its ad business is killing it. Alphabet did exactly what Meta couldn’t. The Google parent proved how massive generative AI investments can pay off, sending the stock up nearly 10% after earnings. It tacked on another 0.2% on Friday. Google Cloud revenue jumped 63% and the segment’s operating income tripled. It was an “extraordinary call ,” Jim said Thursday. We raised our price target to $400 from $350 and reiterated our 1 rating. Jim ranked Alphabet as the top performer among the four Wednesday tech reports, followed by Amazon and Microsoft. Meta was last. Rounding out the week of Big Tech earnings was on Apple on Thursday night. The iPhone maker delivered an impressive set of results that sent shares up over 3% on Friday. The stock is about $6 away from its all-time closing high of $286.19 set on Dec. 2. A sturdy economy Last week gave us the Fed’s latest policy decision, a lot of data, and encouraging commentary from two companies with a close pulse on consumer spending: Visa and Mastercard . These painted a fairly resilient picture of the U.S. economy despite all of the war-driven uncertainty. The central bank announced Wednesday that interest rates would be left unchanged. That was largely expected. It was Fed chief Jerome Powell’s commentary during the press conference after that made us hopeful. “Growth is really solid across our economy,” Powell said. “Some of that is that consumer spending is hanging in pretty well.” Visa’s quarter reaffirmed Powell’s view about the consumer. Wall Street often looks at earnings from the financial services and banking sector as a barometer for consumer health. And it was a great quarter indeed. The payments-processing company beat estimates for earnings and revenues, with CFO Christopher Suh saying U.S. payments volume reflected “resilience in consumer spending.” A day later, Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach struck a similar tone. “Looking at the macro picture, the economic foundation remains generally supportive with healthy underlying consumer and business spending,” he said on the earnings call. Meanwhile, jobs numbers on Thursday showed a stable labor market. First-time filings for unemployment insurance fell to their lowest level since 1969. Also Thursday, the Commerce Department said first-quarter gross domestic product expanded at a 2% seasonally adjusted annualized rate. That’s lower than expectations of 2.2% growth, but it is still higher than 0.5% in the final three months of 2025. (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust.) 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