Nasdaq Leads Wall Street’s Green Week

Nasdaq Leads Wall Street’s Green Week

Last week was bathed in green as the Major Markets saw new life. The Nasdaq was the dominant performer last week followed by gains of 4.6% and 2.5% for the S&P 500 and Dow Jones respectively.

The week started on a soft note as concerns mounted that Trump was ratcheted up pressure on Fed Chair Jerome Powell. Later in the week, the President was on record stating that he had no intentions of firing Powell in an exchange with the press saying.

“The press runs away with things,” Trump said. “No, I have no intention of firing him. I would like to see him be a little more active in terms of his idea to lower interest rates.”

As the week progressed, the market saw four successive days of positive performance. Midweek, President Trump signaled some optimism around the trade war stating that the tariffs on Chinese goods would “come down substantially, but it won’t be zero.”

At the sector level, Information Technology and Consumer Discretionary saw significant gains as a sense of short covering returned to the markets.

Earnings season began to ramp up in earnest last week with the release of over 680 companies reporting. Tesla was one of those companies. While the company reported weak earnings, Elon Musk announced he’s scaling back his DOGE work which sent shares surging 18% higher .

Major Markets		YTD as of 04/25/2025
	Nasdaq
	Dow Jones Industrial
	S&P 500
	MSCI World
	MSCI EM
	Russell 2000
	Bar US Agg Bnd

S&P Sectors

YTD as of 04/25/2025

Comm. Services

Cons. Discretionary

Cons. Staples

Energy

Financials

Health Care

Industrials

Info. Technology

Materials

Real Estate

Utilities

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In Treasuries, the yield curve dropped a few basis points as the overall curve stepped down slightly. While rates are still lower than at the start of the year, the market is still somewhat rattled from the 50-basis point lurch higher a couple weeks ago which stood as the largest increase in yields in twenty years.

Nevertheless, the lower yields favored the overall bond market which matched the positive sentiment seen in the equity market.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/trump-taunts-jerome-powell-waiting-long-cut-rates-rcna202123

https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/22/business/trump-china-trade-war-reduction-hnk-intl/index.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy0x50yr46lo

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The S&P 500® Index is a capitalization index of 500 stock-designed to measure performance of the broad domestic economy through changes in the aggregate market value of stock representing all major industries. https://us.spindices.com/indices/equity/sp-500

The Dow Jones Industrial Average® (The Dow®), is a price-weighted measure of 30 U.S. blue-chip companies. The index covers all industries except transportation and utilities. https://us.spindices.com/indices/equity/dow-jones-industrial-average

The NASDAQ Composite Index measures all NASDAQ domestic and international based common type stocks listed on The NASDAQ Stock Market. Today the NASDAQ Composite includes over 2,500 companies, more than most other stock market indexes. Because it is so broad-based, the Composite is one of the most widely followed and quoted major market indexes. https://indexes.nasdaqomx.com/Index/Overview/COMP

The MSCI World Index, which is part of The Modern Index Strategy, is a broad global equity benchmark that represents large and mid-cap equity performance across 23 developed markets countries. It covers approximately 85% of the free float-adjusted market capitalization in each country and MSCI World benchmark does not offer exposure to emerging markets.

The MSCI Emerging Markets (EM) Index is designed to represent the performance of large- and mid-cap securities in 24 Emerging Markets countries of the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. As of December 2017, it had more than 830 constituents and covered approximately 85% of the free float-adjusted market capitalization in each country. https://www.msci.com/

The S&P GSCI Crude Oil index provides investors with a reliable and publicly available benchmark for investment performance in the crude oil market. https://us.spindices.com/indices

Companies in the S&P 500 Sector Indices are classified based on the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS®). https://us.spindices.com/indices

Weekly Market Commentary