After a poor start to April, the stock market has swiftly rebounded this week and has a chance to finish the month in the green. The lowest point this year of the S&P 500 arrived on April 8th followed by President Trump’s 90-day pause on tariffs announced the following day on the 9th. Since that announcement, the S&P 500 has managed to climb, albeit still with volatile swings. With momentum from that news, the stock market is set to have its best week of the year with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq each up 5.2%. It is yet to be seen how long this rally will last. Investors’ attention is now moving away from tariffs and onto earnings season and so far, the announcements are having a positive impact on the market.
Financials kicked off the earnings season last week with six of the major companies reporting strong sales and earnings including JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citigroup, American Express, and Charles Schwab. This week also showed signs of economic strength, as companies like Google and AbbVie posted excellent quarterly results. Among other strong results this week were ServiceNow, SAP, GE Aerospace, and AT&T. Other news that has moved the market higher this week comes from falling treasury yields and from an increased chance that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates. President Trump has made statements this week urging Fed Chairman Jerome Powell to do just that. Trump also stated on Tuesday that he has no intention of firing Powell, which caused markets to open 2% higher on Wednesday morning.
Along with positive corporate news from this earnings season, so far, we must weigh this against some companies announcing lowered guidance for the remainder of 2025. Due to tariff uncertainty, companies like PepsiCo and Intel have lowered their outlooks, while companies such as Southwest Airlines and American Airlines have withdrawn theirs. In auto news, the highly anticipated earnings announcement of Tesla came out on Tuesday. The company’s revenue missed estimates by 9% and earnings missed estimates by 35%. However, the stock responded well this week due to Elon Musk’s vow to devote less time at DOGE. Taken altogether, the first two weeks of the earnings season have positively affected the market, and we have seen some signs of market resilience.
Economic news came in fairly mixed this week. The University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index was reported at 52.2, slightly up from earlier in the month at 50.8. This most likely comes as an effect of Trump’s tariff pause. U.S. jobless claims were reported at 222,000 last week which remain at a stable level between 200,000 and 250,000. Existing home sales in March decreased 5.9% from February, marking the largest month-to-month decline since November 2022. The median existing home sales price for March came in at $403,700, up from $392,900 one year ago. However, according to data released Wednesday by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, sales of new single-family homes were up 7.4% from February and 6% higher than in March 2024.
In much lighter news, if you are thinking of travelling along the East coast anytime soon, you may want to avoid the seaside town of Rockport, Massachusetts. This quiet, small town, located just 20 miles Northeast of Boston with a population of around 7,000, has experienced at least 25 vehicles vandalized since March. The good news is that the vandal was seen in the act of destroying a window by a local resident, while the bad news is that there is no hope of detaining him. The Rockport resident took to the neighborhood Facebook page to describe him as being “18” – 24” tall, wearing black and white, with a red hat.” Although the post occurred on April 1st, it was not an April Fool’s prank and within a few hours, many residents responded that their cars were also vandalized. The criminal turns out to be a pileated woodpecker. Miami Zoo director, Ron Magill had insightful analysis on the situation, “this time of year is mating season, so all birds, not just pileated woodpeckers, but all birds are getting into a very aggressive, territorial courtship display…If they’re seeing the reflection of themselves, they don’t understand it’s a reflection; they think it’s a competitor.” Matthew Fuxjager, a co-director of the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology graduate program at Brown University, had this to say of the ferocious bird strength, “it’s the biomechanical equivalent of a hammer.” Unfortunately for the town of Rockport, they will have to stay on alert for these incidents as the mating season doesn’t end until June.
Ryan Motsinger
