But stocks only flinched a little. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) fell just 0.2% and the Nasdaq (^IXIC) 0.3% as the Dow (^DJI) stayed flat.
With President Trump saying the two-week ceasefire, expiring Wednesday evening in D.C., is unlikely to be extended, markets still have something to watch.
On the agenda this morning:
🍏 Goodbye, Tim Cook and hello, John Ternus
🤩 Wall Street is afraid of ‘too much optimism’
🏦 Mr. Warsh goes to Washington
💼 Workers hate the pay but won’t leave
😬 How the big banks really feel
⛽️ One last piece of bad news — for drivers
📆 What we’re watching Tuesday: United Airlines (UAL) headlines today’s earnings calendar (preview here), along with a big swath of corporate results across industries: aerospace and defense (RTX, Northrop Grumman, GE Aerospace); finance and insurance (Capital One, Chubb, Interactive Brokers, Synchrony); oil and gas (Halliburton); and retail (Tractor Supply Company).
We’ve also got a very close eye on retail sales, expected to come in strong as the consumer “does it again” despite some blustering headwinds.
🤖 The AI trade is fueling the market to record highs —despite Iran war.
🌈 Psychedelic drugmakers jump as Trump fast-tracks FDA reviews.
John Ternus, Apple Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering, introduces the new M2 microprocessor at Apple’s WWDC 2022 developer conference at the company’s headquarters, Apple Park, in Cupertino. (Christoph Dernbach/picture alliance via Getty Images) ·picture alliance via Getty Images
Apple dropped some big news on Monday evening: Longtime CEO Tim Cook is going to step down on Sept. 1, with senior vice president of hardware engineering John Ternus taking his place.
Cook, who succeeded Steve Jobs in 2011, saw Apple through a transitional time that welcomed new hardware categories, a services business, and a 24x market cap growth, but also the loss of its Most Valuable Company title as the company saw itself gapped in the first stage of the AI trade.
He was as synonymous with the company as anyone not named Steve could have been, enough for President Trump to iconically refer to him as “Tim Apple.” We, too, have typed that name many times before catching ourselves.
Cook will stay on as chair, and the market will doubtless turn its attention on Tuesday to learning more about Ternus.
People walk by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on July 07, 2025, in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images) ·Spencer Platt via Getty Images
Today’s Takeaway is by Myles Udland, our Head of News.
Stocks are trading at record highs.
But this new high-water mark for the benchmark S&P 500 has not met with resounding enthusiasm or relief.
Investor sentiment data from the American Association of Individual Investors showed there were still more bears than bulls for the week ended April 16, according to RBC’s head of US equity strategy, Lori Calvasina, in a Sunday night note to clients.
“While we were surprised by how low the level of bullishness remained on this survey, we probably shouldn’t have been, based on the conversations we had with long-only US-focused and US-based equity investors last week,” Calvasina and her team wrote.
With the stock market’s push to a record close last Wednesday, the S&P 500 capped its fastest return to record highs after a drop of at least 5% since at least 1928, according to data from Bespoke Investment Group.
On Friday, the Nasdaq clinched its 13th straight winning session, its longest streak since 1992.
Calvasina added that the speed of the market’s ascent left investors she and her team met with in a relative “state of disbelief,” with many thinking that “stocks were simply pricing in too much optimism, with potential ripple effects from the Middle East and energy market disruption still clouding the outlook in terms of potential cost pressures on businesses and consumers and demand/sentiment impacts.”
Notably, private credit worries, AI bubble fears, and concerns about a policy mistake from the Fed did not feature in these discussions, RBC added.
FILE – Meta’s Stanton Springs Data Center is seen Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in Newton County, East of Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart, File) ·ASSOCIATED PRESS
For some commentators, this rally is a source of frustration or, more pointedly, a sign that investors are flat-out wrong about how much to discount a series of global risks.
For others, the market’s rise hinges on a one-time quirk that flatters the underlying profitability of corporate America.
Whether the primary source of the market’s early spring bout of optimism is easing tensions in the Middle East, a renewed faith in the AI trade, or a misguided belief in what this earnings season will say about US corporate profits is a fun discussion, but it doesn’t offer anything durable for an investor to take past this distinct moment in market history.
Rather, what the last six weeks of market behavior have reminded us is that the market’s collective wisdom really just asks one question, every day: Are things getting better or worse?
What changes, at nearly the same cadence, are the things we’re talking about: wars, profits, technological innovations, animal spirits, recessions, booms, pandemics, and the like.
Financial markets remain a source of fascination because of the investor class’s collective willingness to offer judgments on all manner of events, albeit in sometimes crude and inelegant ways.
And the additional benefit of markets is that if you disagree with these conclusions, there are plenty of ways to express that view.
None of which requires you to put it in writing.
Former U.S. Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh speaks during a monetary policy conference at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution in Palo Alto, California, U.S. May 9, 2025. REUTERS/Ann Saphir/File Photo ·REUTERS / REUTERS
Kevin Warsh, President Trump’s nominee to replace Jerome Powell as Fed chair, will appear before the Senate on Tuesday at 10 a.m. ET to begin his confirmation hearing.
Fed chair confirmation hearings are, of course, pretty rare. But both the moment’s stakes and drama are particularly elevated.
Not only are we in a challenging moment for the central bank’s mission, we’re in the midst of a historic moment for its independence. And with a stubborn senator from the president’s own party, an investigation largely seen as political, and a nominee with historical views more hawkish than his recent positions, we have all the ingredients for another big show on Capitol Hill.
Monday gave us a taste of what’s to come. Not about rates, but about the Fed’s role in the economy.
Prepared remarks from Warsh stress a commitment to independence and fealty to the “nation’s interest,” with decisions derived from “analytic rigor, meaningful deliberation, and unclouded decision-making.”
The elephant in the room, of course, is the bully pulpit’s influence on rates, which will not be included on that list of decision inputs.
On the other hand, he will reference the president’s commentary, noting that he doesn’t think “operational independence of monetary policy is particularly threatened when elected officials — presidents, senators, or members of the House — state their views on interest rates.”
We eagerly await the senators’ bipartisan follow-ups to that sentiment, which will likely ask about the now-not-unprecedented heavy touch from the current president, which included insults and ultimately an investigation Powell said was designed to meddle.
A “Now Hiring” sign is posted in a shop on March 6, 2026 in Pasadena, California. (Mario Tama/Getty Images) ·Mario Tama via Getty Images
It’s a weird time for workers. According to the latest New York Fed survey, satisfaction with pay reached the lowest levels since the survey began in 2014.
At the same time, the push to switch jobs (the traditional shortcut to more money) hit the lowest level since March 2021.
In this economy, nobody wants to quit.
This measure of acceptance of unsatisfying wages is a trump card for businesses, which have a clear upper hand. But it’s also a potential longer-term red flag if the people who prop up the economy with their spending find themselves faced with $4 gas and still-untamed inflation.
These sentiment numbers match the low quit rates in the hard data that we’ve been seeing. But once again, we’re looking at survey numbers that may belie reality about what that means for the economy.
While they certainly can be an early warning system that calls out economic icebergs, we’ve seen people cry wolf time and time again when asked — while pulling out their credit cards when they arrive at the register.
Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf is interviewed by David Rubenstein, chairman of the Economic Club of Washington D.C., during an event in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 20, 2026. (REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein) ·Reuters / Reuters
“Businesses have gone into this [historic economic moment] in strong financial shape. So those are all the good things. But then when you ask them how they feel, everyone’s nervous.”
— Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf
Big bank results last week showed the strength of the industry and delivered a strong start to the quarterly earnings season. But the results, and even outlooks, were not unsubtly couched in uncertainty.
On the one hand, this can seem like standard financial prospectus CYA behavior. On the other, they’re also telling us how they’re really feeling.
The market has said it’s nervous too, in its way. Just, perhaps, not about negative Iran developments, as Myles wrote above.
One of the defining characteristics of this bull market has been what’s felt like a gravitational force pulling stocks up and to the right, mixed with sudden moments of panic as twitchy investor hands hover over the sell button.
Which quickly leads, as the record highs show, to acceptance and a path back onto the old-timey cog railroad up the mountain.
Fuel prices are displayed on a gas station sign in Brentwood, Tennessee, on April 19, 2026. (Photo by Camden Hall/NurPhoto via Getty Images) ·NurPhoto via Getty Images
The Iran peace talks may succeed. At some point, at least.
But even the best-case scenario sees gas prices staying above $3 per gallon for the rest of the year, a growing chorus of analysts predict.
The way gas prices usually work is, frankly, very irritating. Prices go up like a “rocket” and down like a “feather,” as the saying goes. Drivers are the last in line to benefit from collapsing crude prices, a fact that has long played a role in elections.
Nobody seems to be taking the other side of this $3-plus prediction, with even the Energy secretary admitting it. Except the president, who contradicted his adviser, saying, “I think he’s wrong on that. Totally wrong.”
Economic data: ADP weekly employment change, week ended April 4 (39,250 previously); Philadelphia Fed non-manufacturing activity, April (-23.9 previously); Retail sales advance, month-on-month, March (+1.3% expected, +0.6% previously); Retail sales ex auto, month-on-month, March (+1.3% expected, +0.5% previously); Retail sales ex auto and gas, March (+0.2% expected, +0.4% previously); Business inventories, February (+0.3% expected, -0.1% previously)
Earnings calendar: GE Aerospace (GE), UnitedHealth Group (UNH), RTX Corporation (RTX), Intuitive Surgical (ISRG), Danaher Corporation (DHR), Interactive Brokers (IBKR), Chubb (CB), Capital One (COF), Northrop Grumman (NOC), 3M (MMM), ASM International NV (ASMIY), MSCI (MSCI), EQT (EQT), Halliburton (HAL), United Airlines (UAL), Northern Trust (NTRS), Synchrony Financial (SYF), Tractor Supply Company (TSCO), Equifax (EFX)
Economic data: MBA mortgage applications, week ended April 17 (+1.8% previously)
Earnings calendar: Tesla (TSLA), Lam Research (LRCX), GE Vernova (GEV), Philip Morris (PM), IBM (IBM), Texas Instruments (TXN), AT&T (T), Boeing (BA), Verity Holdings (VRT), CME Group (CME), ServiceNow (NOW), Boston Scientific (BSX), Moody’s Corporation (MCO), CSX Corporation (CSX), Kinder Morgan (KMI), Elevance Health (ELV), TE Connectivity (TEL), United Rentals (URI), Westinghouse (WAB), Waste Connections (WCN), Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS), Otis Worldwide Corporation (OTIS), Raymond James Financial (RJF)
Economic data: Chicago Fed national activity index, March (-0.11 previously); Initial jobless claims, week ended April 18 (+210,000 expected, +207,000 previously); Continuing claims, week ended April 11 (1.82 million previously); S&P Global US manufacturing PMI, April preliminary reading (52.8 expected, 52.3 previously); S&P Global US services PMI, April preliminary reading (50 expected, 49.8 previously); S&P Global US composite PMI, April preliminary reading (50.3 previously); Kansas City Fed manufacturing activity, April (11 previously)
Earnings calendar: Intel (INTC), American Express (AXP), SAP (SAP), Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO), NextEra Energy (NEE), Gilead Sciences (GILD), Blackstone (BX), Southern Copper (SCCO), Union Pacific (UNP), Honeywell International (HON), Lockheed Martin (LMT), Newmont (NEM), Sanofi (SNY), Comcast (CMCSA), Freeport-McMoran (FCX), Vale S.A. (VALE), Digital Realty Trust (DLR), Baker Hughes (BKR), Infosys (INFY), Nasdaq, Inc (NDAQ), CBRE Group (CBRE)
Friday
Economic data: University of Michigan sentiment, April final reading (48.3 expected, 47.6 previously); U. Mich. current conditions, April final reading (50.1 previously); U. Mich. expectations, April final reading (46.1 previously); U. Mich. 1-year inflation, April final reading (+4.8% previously); U. Mich. 5-10 year inflation, April final reading (+3.4% previously); Kansas City Fed services activity, April (15 previously)
Earnings calendar: Procter & Gamble (PG), HCA Healthcare (HCA), Eni S.p.A. (E), SLB (SLB), Norfolk Southern (NSC), Charter Communications (CHTR), Nomura Holdings (NMR), Flagstar Bank (FLG)
Hamza Shaban is a reporter for Yahoo Finance covering markets and the economy. Follow Hamza on X @hshaban.
