The View From Fifth Avenue

A sneakily bullish tone has crept into sentiment and is taking hold as earnings kick off on the front foot. Over a quarter of the S&P500 is slated to report this week with Verizon and Domino’s Pizza front and center today. The former posted an upgrade to guidance as well as a Q2 EBITDA beat and FCF beat while the latter gave back initial gains on sales growth. The broader market followed a similar script: early gains faded late, but both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq still managed to close in the gree…

BTD – ‘Buy The Dip’ seems to be the fashionable summer trend since the April 7 lows with equity markets continuing to push higher as earnings season gets rolling. Stocks rose as stronger-than-expected retail sales and a fifth straight decline in jobless claims (229.5k vs 235.5k prior) signaled continued economic strength, helping the S&P 500 (+54%) and the Nasdaq 100 (+74%) chalk up more new highs. Retail sales jumped 0.6% in June, reinforcing optimism about consumer resilience despite inflati…

Groundhog day? As we officially start another earnings season, it seems all eyes continue to be trained on tariff talks and the volatile relationship between the White house and Jerome Powell. Trump took to the TV to state, he still has no plans for replace Powell, but he may reconsider that position if the DOJ finds evidence of fraud in the massively overbudget “renovation” of the Federal Reserve headquarters. Markets swung broadly all morning, seemingly found footing around the close in Eu…

June CPI was the focus of investors this morning, as many were looking to today’s data to gauge the effect of tariffs. Core CPI m/m was slightly lower than expected, rising 0.2% while headline CPI m/m was in line, rising 0.3%. Yields fell immediately on the data while US equity indexes rose to the morning highs. Once the knee jerk reactions settled a more concerning picture started to take shape for investors. Despite the CPI readings coming in below estimates, all CPI categories had increased…

One could’ve anticipated a proper Manic Monday given Tariff headlines to conclude the weekend (and today intraday), but TACO heads prevailed to only have a rather mundane Monday with a splash of M&A announcements, perhaps the calm before the start of earnings and slew of eco data this week. With that said, Major averages opened down, spending majority of the morning in the red (ex. the RTY Index-Russell 2,000) before clawing back into positive territory post EU close, firmly holding onto gains…

Just prior to heading into H2, our inimitable Charts team highlighted that July is a historically favorable one and that is bearing out as we get a third of the way through the month. But a funny thing is happening on the way to new all-time highs that we saw today. Investors are ditching the stocks said ATHs were built on the back of in favor of the year-to-date laggards. Breadth had been somewhat encouraging of late but the 2nd half performance chase is on and investors are looking for diamon…

Letters from Washington continue to hit the mailroom, but today’s batch did not have as much impact as Monday’s. The Philippines and Iraq were the headliners of the seven released, and markets took them in stride. Except for the initial drop Monday at noon, investors have taken a patient approach to the initial July 9th tariff target date (now pushed to August 1st) and continue to assess where the current market sits. Indexes made all-time highs last week and are not far from those levels while…

It was a quiet, mixed session with the S&P undecided for most of the day. It finally settled just slightly lower, and the Dow ended up where it started the morning -–lagging the other major indices, down 37bps. Treasury yields ticked slightly higher ahead of this week’s auctions and the dollar was stronger with the DXY up 5bps, apart from the Australian dollar, which rallied after the RBA held rates. Brent climbed 80bps, while gold slipped 94bps, and Bitcoin ran 80bps. Meanwhile, Trump threaten…

Investors weren’t given much time to digest the 150 million hot dogs that were consumed in the US over the weekend before the tariff volatility kicked in (shoutout to Joey Chestnut who ate 70.5 dogs in 10 mins). Just two days before the July 9th deadline the administration sent out tariff letters to multiple trading partners who have yet to agree to a trade deal, stating specific levies on imports that will take effect August 1st. Japan and South Korea were the two most notable trading partners…

The S&P 500 notched a fresh all-time high today, with tech leading the charge. While Tesla remains the biggest laggard among the MAG7 in 2025 (Meta, by contrast, is up 23% YTD), the EV maker was the top gainer in the S&P 500 today despite reporting vehicle deliveries that missed consensus estimates. Sales fell 13% year-over-year, but the decline was smaller than feared, triggering a relief rally. On the macro front, private payrolls were the key data point, showing a surprise decline of 33K ver…