👋 Good morning! Stocks surged once more on Tuesday as a lower-than-expected wholesale inflation release lifted investor spirits further, along with hopes for deescalation with Iran: A second round of talks is in the works.
These gains put the S&P 500 at 6,967, putting the 7,000 milestone back in sight for the first time in quite some time. That's right, we're near record highs once again.
(The record close, for those who are counting, is 6,978.60 on Jan. 28.)
On the agenda this morning:
🤖 The AI and tech trades are back and booming
📈 The market is bullish again, but it's 'not a close-eyes-and-buy' market
⚠️ An AI jobs training doom loop
🛰️ Amazon ups its competition with SpaceX and Starlink
🔮 A Strait prediction
⌚️ A shiny thing
Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., April 13, 2026. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid ·Reuters / Reuters
📆 What we're watching Wednesday: Big Bank earnings continue with Bank of America (BAC) and Morgan Stanley (MS), and we'll be watching for other inklings of consumer and corporate strain throughout.
We'll also be watching the Fed's Beige Book for illustrative business-world anecdotes from around the country, out in the afternoon.
The Microsoft store is pictured in Manhattan on March 31, 2026, in New York City. Microsoft is facing a significant market downturn during the first quarter of 2026. The company's stock has lost at least 25% of its value. (Zamek/VIEWpress) ·VIEW press via Getty Images
The S&P 500 has done just fine over the past few months without too much help from Big Tech and the muscly AI trade.
But on Tuesday, it was clear that the stock market's heaviest hitters were back at the plate swinging for the fences.
As our Jared Blikre noted, the Technology (XLK) sector is booming with its longest streak since December and reminds us how we got to be knocking on the door of S&P 7,000 in the first place.
Semiconductors have played a huge part in the story as the AI infrastructure trade has gotten especially hot lately. But its broadening back to the "Magnificent Seven" means that Nvidia, for example, is finally at a year-to-date high. Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet are also doing well, and Meta is digging itself out of its hole
📈 The market is bullish again, but it's 'not a close-eyes-and-buy' market
(REUTERS/Carlo Allegri) ·Reuters / Reuters
Just like that, stocks have reclaimed lost territory and essentially wiped all of the losses from the Iran war.
The S&P is knocking on the door of the 7,000 mark. Banks, the vanguard of corporate earnings, are posting profit beats, and producers' latest inflation reading came in better than expected. What's not to like?
Today, they bought through it. But according to the latest Bank of America survey of fund managers, growth expectations are slumping while inflation pessimism is setting in. And overall sentiment is the worst it's been since last summer, when tariffs and the trade war ruled the news day.
The stock market might feel bullish again, but as Bank of America strategists led by Michael Hartnett wrote in a note Tuesday, this is not a "close-eyes-and-buy" market.
Fund managers, the survey found, have cut their expectations for growth down to levels not seen since early 2022, and inflation expectations are the highest they've been since 2021. To be clear, this survey round was conducted from April 2 to 9, with the ceasefire coming on April 8. But with a rapidly shifting and uncertain landscape, this may be the gravitational force under which the current (and very forgiving, as a default) bull market is operating.
That said, investors and analysts who have bet against the strength of the American consumer have been proven wrong through multiple shocks. Recent memory tells us that the economy is almost always more resilient than people (and economists) give it credit for, which is another way of saying: Don't underestimate people's spending ability even when things are looking dicey.
We're like the postal service: Neither pandemic nor trade war nor frozen hiring market stays these consumers from the swift swiping of their credit cards.
The fear of AI-fueled jobs displacement has another wrinkle: the people with the most access to learning new AI tools are largely the same ones who already have higher-income jobs.
That’s a key finding in a new analysis from New York Federal Reserve researchers. It’s like the flip side of the meme that AI can’t take away your job if you don’t already have one.
If AI adoption in the workplace skews higher for employed college graduates, that raises concerns that potential future job losses prompted by AI will also be biased against younger people and those with lower incomes.
“Crucially, some of the workers who place the highest value on AI training, such as those without a college degree, are also those with the lowest rates of AI usage and the lowest share of access to employer-provided training in how to use AI tools,” the New York Fed researchers wrote. “Closing this gap may be essential to reaching the productivity gains from having generative AI tools in the workplace.”
🛰️ Amazon ups its competition with SpaceX and Starlink
A technician passes by a second-generation Globalstar satellite being built on January 27, 2010, at the Thales Alenia Space offices in Rome. (VINCENZO PINTO/AFP via Getty Images) ·VINCENZO PINTO via Getty Images
Amazon is buying satellite company Globalstar (GSAT) for $11.5 billion, a shot across the bow for Starlink and SpaceX, ahead of its drumrolled IPO that may be the biggest of all time.
As we noted this week, Starlink is a key gem in SpaceX's crown, and though cable previously vanquished satellite internet and TV, it appears to be making a comeback.
The acquisition adds to Amazon's portfolio of 200-odd satellites, but it's much less than Starlink's 10,000, which has a massive lead in the (literal) space.
But Amazon's acquisition and partnerships to power Apple devices and in-flight internet for airlines show a clear ambition to compete.
“You have to have very large losses in private credit before at least it looks like banks are going to get hit or something like that. So it doesn't mean you won't feel some stress and strain, and that you might have to do something about it, but I'm not particularly worried about it."
But like Fed Chair Jerome Powell, who shrugged off any systemic concerns, Dimon downplayed the risks on Tuesday after the bank he leads reported results.
✂️ Sozzi talks to the Fed's Goolsbee
Chicago Federal Reserve Bank president Austan Goolsbee is always high energy, and is always willing to fling it in terms of economic observations.
“I think they are [still anchored]. But just be careful. There's a lot of research that shows consumer inflation expectations are very tied to the price of gasoline because it's such a public price. The level of the price of gasoline has an impact on what they think the inflation rate is going to be in a world like that. If gas gets to $5 a gallon and stays there for many months, we could see some unanchoring.”
Will the Strait be open by the end of May? Tuesday saw those chances rise to over 50% for the first time since the fragile ceasefire was announced.
Though the stock market and oil futures are de facto prediction markets for this question, it's been interesting to monitor.
(Disclosure: Yahoo Finance has a partnership with Polymarket, hence the data on our site.)
⌚️ A shiny thing
(Rolex)
Rolex unveiled its new offerings for 2026, leaving critics wanting more.
“I found the watches pretty underwhelming overall," watch expert Eric Wind told Yahoo Finance.
But expensive! To wit, the above watch is a mostly steel Daytona model, a chronograph (stopwatch). It's — are you sitting down — nearly $60,000. Sure, there's some platinum involved, but not much!
For the Geneva-based king of watches, which have wildly strong first- and second-hand markets, it doesn't matter.
As Wind said, the company is operating from one of the best positions in business.
"They are in a ‘can’t miss’ world, and nothing Rolex does can really be uncool or not commercially successful at this time,” he added.
Economic data: MBA mortgage applications, week ended Apr. 10 (-0.8% previously); Empire manufacturing, April (-0.2 previously); Import price index, month-on-month, March (+1.3% previously); Import price index ex petroleum, month-on-month, March (+1.2% previously); Import price index, year-on-year, March (+1.3% previously); Export price index, month-on-month, March (+1.5% previously); Export price index, year-on-year, March (+3.5% previously); NAHB housing market index, April (38 previously); Fed releases Beige Book
Earnings calendar: ASML Holding N.V. (ASML), Bank of America (BAC), Morgan Stanley (MS), The Progressive Corporation (PGR), PNC Financial Services (PNC), Kinder Morgan (KMI), M&T Bank (MTB), J.B. Hunt Transport Services (JBHT), First Horizon (FHN), Winmark (WINA)
Thursday
Economic data: New York Fed services business activity, April, (-22.6 previously); Philadelphia Fed business outlook, April (18.1 previously); Initial jobless claims, week ended Apr. 11 (219,000 previously); Continuing claims, week ended Apr. 4 (1.79 million previously); Industrial production, month-on-month, March (+0.2% expected, +0.2% previously); Manufacturing production, March (+0.2% previously)
Earnings calendar: Netflix (NFLX), PepsiCo (PEP), Abbott Laboratories (ABT), Charles Schwab (SCHW), Prologis (PLD), BNY Mellon (BK), U.S. Bancorp (USB), Marsh & McLennan (MRSH), The Travelers Companies (TRV), Infosys (INFY), Citizens Financial Group (CFG), KeyCorp (KEY), Alcoa (AA)
Friday
Economic data: No notable economic data.
Earnings calendar: Truist Financial Corporation (TFC), Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB), State Street (STT), Ally Financial (ALLY)
Hamza Shaban is a reporter for Yahoo Finance covering markets and the economy. Follow Hamza on X @hshaban.
