Yardeni Research — Ed Yardeni 7,700 → 8,250 (raised Sun May 10)

Yardeni Research enters Tuesday with the highest year-end target on the Street after Ed Yardeni told CNBC Sunday he had “never seen anything like” the current earnings revisions cycle and lifted his 2026 S&P 500 line to 8,250 from 7,700 — keeping his 2029 SPX 10,000 marker but flagging it may “arrive ahead of schedule.” Tuesday’s Morning Briefing pivots from valuation to geopolitics, framing the Trump-Xi summit Thursday-Friday as “the most under-discussed event on the calendar and the most consequential” with Iran still unresolved, and the QuickTakes Week Ahead note pegged Cleveland Fed Nowcast headline CPI at 3.56% y/y for Tuesday — a print that “would constrain Warsh from easing monetary policy from day one.” The 8:30 actual landed at 3.8%.

RBC Capital Markets — Lori Calvasina 7,750 → 7,900 (raised Thu May 8)

RBC’s Lori Calvasina lifted her year-end S&P 500 target to 7,900 from 7,750 last Thursday, citing what her team calls a “two-speed” economy where AI hyperscaler earnings are doing the heavy lifting and offsetting a 7.5% cut RBC made to non-AI S&P 500 EPS forecasts. The team is leaving AI-linked estimates close to consensus while marking down the rest of the index — a tacit acknowledgment that Mag-7 dependency is now the bull case, not the risk case. With Yardeni at 8,250 and RBC stepping up to 7,900, the Street’s revision skew is firmly higher even as Hartnett’s tactical Bull-Bear gauge hovers at 6.6 and remains in “neutral but warming” territory.

HSBC — Nicole Inui 7,500 → 7,650 (raised this week)

HSBC’s Nicole Inui raised her 2026 year-end S&P 500 target to 7,650 from 7,500 in a Monday note, implying only ~3.4% upside from Friday’s record close. She wrote that the index could pass 8,000 IF tech/AI sentiment rebounds AND geopolitics/trade/rates concerns ease, but added that “earnings remain supportive, sentiment is on shakier ground.” Combined with Yardeni 8,250 and RBC 7,900, the third strategist target lift in 96 hours frames the bull case explicitly as an earnings-revision trade rather than a multiple-expansion call — precisely the framework Apollo’s Slok’s “no signs of a full-blown credit cycle” print this morning is structurally underwriting.

Goldman Sachs — David Kostin / Ben Snider 7,600 held (Snider takes over)

Goldman’s outgoing chief US equity strategist David Kostin and successor Ben Snider held their 7,600 year-end target into May, anchored on $305-309 EPS and 12% earnings growth, and explicitly defending the 22x forward multiple as “justified by earnings durability” in a “Goldilocks” macro backdrop. That print now looks conservative against Yardeni at 8,250, RBC at 7,900, Morgan Stanley’s 7,800 12-month line and Barclays/HSBC at 7,650 — Goldman is the dovish anchor on a rapidly rising mean. Prime Brokerage data from late last week still has HFs cutting net leverage the most since September 2025 and Mag-7 at ~19% of US single-stock net exposure, leaving Kostin’s house view conspicuously underweight relative to actual industry positioning.

Morgan Stanley — Mike Wilson 7,800 (12-mo target)

Mike Wilson — the desk’s most rehabilitated bull — stays at a 7,800 12-month S&P 500 target built on 17% EPS growth to $317 and the conviction that the April lows have already marked the cycle bottom. His top sector tilts remain Financials, Industrials and Healthcare with a fresh upgrade of small-caps relative to large, citing the first earnings-revision crossover in over a year. Wilson’s “underappreciated narrative” framing — that 2026 will be carried by operating-leverage expansion rather than multiple compression — is the most coherent counter to Rosenberg-style bubble warnings on the strategist desk, and pairs neatly with the capex stack now concentrated entirely in mega-cap spenders flagged by Apollo’s Slok.

Barclays — Venu Krishna 7,650 (raised late March)

Barclays’ Venu Krishna lifted his 2026 S&P 500 target to 7,650 from 7,400 in late March on a $321 EPS print (raised from $305) and used the same note to upgrade Industrials to “positive” and lift Materials and Energy from “negative” to “neutral” — explicitly leaning into the higher-oil, AI-capex, “Grid 2.0” trade that has since become consensus across Goldman’s power-stocks list and Wilson’s Industrials overweight. Barclays held that view through the Middle East flare-up, arguing the inflation pass-through from oil to PPI was outweighed by the industrial super-cycle. With Hormuz still tense and WTI back through $100, that bet on energy as a positive sector contribution is now being live-tested.

BofA Securities — Michael Hartnett Bull-Bear 6.6 / “bull trap”

Hartnett’s Bull & Bear Indicator ticked to 6.6 from 6.3 on the most recent Wednesday print — boosted by tighter HY and AT1 spreads, tech inflows and more bullish gold/VIX positioning, but still inside the neutral band rather than the >8 sell trigger. Friday’s May 9 Flow Show explicitly warned the rally has the markings of a “bull trap” — Nasdaq’s 13-day winning streak is the longest since July 2009, oversold-to-overbought in 11 days is the 2nd-fastest since 1982, single-week cash inflow was a record $172.2B, YTD cash funds are at $972bn (3rd-largest year ever), and BofA institutional sentiment is the most pessimistic since June 2025. Hartnett tactical: Fed cut pricing (~5bp) still has room to fall further; constructive on China.

Apollo Daily Spark — Torsten Slok “No signs of a full-blown credit cycle”

Apollo Chief Economist Torsten Slok publishes Tuesday’s Daily Spark with the unambiguous title “In Credit Markets, Things Are Getting Better, Not Worse” — flagging falling default rates, declining distressed exchanges and a drop in liability-management exercises. His bottom line: “the economy is strong and there are no signs of a full-blown credit cycle.” This is a direct rebuttal to Rosenberg’s “tiring bubble vision” frame and a useful anchor for the Goldman/RBC/Wilson bull stack — credit isn’t blinking even as equity valuations stretch. Slok’s adjacent prints quantify the concentration risk (top 10 S&P 500 companies now at 34% of profits, doubled since 1996) but, for now, on the right side of the trade.

Yardeni Research — Tuesday Morning Briefing CPI nowcast 3.56 → 3.8 actual

Yardeni’s Tuesday Morning Briefing pivots to the Beijing summit while flagging the data risk: Cleveland Fed Nowcast had Tuesday’s headline CPI rising 0.45% m/m to push annual to 3.56% from 3.30%, and the May preliminary Nowcast already points to 3.89% y/y — “a trajectory that would constrain Warsh from easing monetary policy from day one.” The ISM Prices-Paid Index, a six-month forward inflation signal, rose to 155.3 in April, the highest reading since December 2022. Core CPI is more benign at 2.56% y/y nowcast (2.8% actual), but the gasoline pass-through (national pump at $4.58, futures at $3.53) is real, and Friday’s Powell-to-Warsh handoff at the Fed lands directly into a hot headline-CPI tape.

The Kobeissi Letter SOX 23% of S&P / +60% above 200DMA

The Kobeissi Letter posted at 4:28 AM ET that the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index now accounts for a record 23% of S&P 500 market cap — DOUBLED over the cycle — and is trading +60% above its 200-day moving average, “the largest divergence since March 2000,” when the dot-com bubble peaked. That framing matches Burry’s Sunday CAPE-40 “last months of 1999-2000” post and Apollo’s top-10-companies-equal-34%-of-profits chart, putting the concentration trade on every desk’s screen this morning. With NVDA, AVGO, AMD and the broader AI hardware complex still leading the tape, this is the single cleanest contrarian data point on the board against the Yardeni / RBC / Wilson bull stack.

Mohamed El-Erian WTI back through $100

Mohamed El-Erian flagged at the open of European trade that WTI crude has reclaimed the $100 handle while Brent moves closer to its own breakout level — a real-time confirmation of the Hormuz risk premium baking back into the energy stack with the US-Iran ceasefire on “life support” per Trump’s overnight remarks. Earlier in the session El-Erian also pinned the morning’s gilt-yield breakout (10-year UK staring down a 5% handle) to Starmer’s deepening political crisis, and yesterday afternoon reposted WSJ on copper notching a fresh record high “on strong demand” — a three-leg inflation impulse (oil + industrial metals + sovereign yields) that lands directly into the hot CPI print and Friday’s Fed transition.

David Rosenberg — Rosenberg Research “Tiring bubble vision”

David Rosenberg posted Monday afternoon — and pinned visibly through the European session — that “It’s tiring having to listen to talk on bubble vision about how great the U.S. economy is” before walking through what Rosie continues to read as a labor market deteriorating beneath the surface and a Fed that “has no intention of cutting rates” not because of inflation but because of asset-bubble fear. With Yardeni now at 8,250 and Apollo’s Slok publishing “things are getting better, not worse” on credit this morning, Rosenberg is on the lonely end of the macro spectrum — but his framing is the cleanest counter-narrative on a tape where Mag-7 weighting and SOX concentration are both at March-2000 echoes.

Charlie Bilello SPX +16% in 6 weeks — 11th biggest since 1950

Charlie Bilello posted Monday that the S&P 500’s 16% gain over the last six weeks ranks as the 11th biggest six-week stretch since the 1950s — historically a momentum signal that has resolved bullishly more often than not, but also a print that puts the rally’s velocity firmly in the upper decile of the post-war record. He paired that with a Global Central Bank Update flagging Mexico’s 15th cut of the cycle (25bp) — a useful reminder that the global easing trade is still alive even as Yardeni’s CPI nowcast pushes the Fed firmly on hold. Walter Deemer’s re-circulation of the stat highlighted the ONLY non-bear-market-tied analog in the top-20 history.

Fundstrat — Tom Lee “Stocks rising for the right reasons”

Tom Lee’s pinned May 7 post — re-elevated as the bull-frame anchor heading into Tuesday — argues the S&P 500’s leadership “is selling something scarce: compute (NVDA, INTC, AMD), AI hardware (MU, SNDK), energy infrastructure (GEV), and services where demand outstrips supply (MAGS basket).” His read: “stocks are rising for the right reasons.” That call dovetails with CNBC Daily Open reporting overnight that Dan Ives sees Nasdaq 30,000 in the next 12 months with “demand and supply is 10-1 for chips,” and lines up with Apollo Slok’s chart this week showing the capex cycle “carried by a handful of mega-cap spenders.”

Jonathan Krinsky — BTIG “Swift revision lower in semi-AI trade”

BTIG’s chief market technician Jonathan Krinsky used a Closing Bell hit Monday afternoon to deliver the bluntest tactical bear case on the tape: the semiconductor and AI complex — which Kobeissi tallied at roughly 50% of S&P gains since April 1 — is set up for a “swift revision lower” as breadth divergences widen against the index print. Semis are now a record 17.4% of S&P 500 market cap per Kevin Gordon and Joe Weisenthal’s weekend stat, leaving the other 82.6% of the tape carrying a far thinner bid. Krinsky’s 200-dma reference remains roughly 6,580 with the index closing Monday near 7,400 — the largest 200-dma gap of this cycle and the same setup he flagged before April’s pullback.

Mark Newton — Fundstrat Global Advisors Healthcare EW at 13-yr low vs SPX

Fundstrat’s Mark Newton stayed half-cash/half-stock into Tuesday’s open and used Monday evening to flag a quiet but consequential divergence: Equal-weighted Healthcare has fallen to a 13-year low versus equal-weighted S&P 500, with the IHI med-tech ETF the GLP-1 victim doing the dragging. Combined with equal-weighted Consumer Discretionary at 4-year relative lows, Newton’s read is that “outside of Tech, sectors like Consumer Discretionary & HC remain very much out of favor & have dragged down breadth in the short run.” On the Milk Road podcast clip from May 8 he kept his base case of “a 3-5% correction after our run up — nothing devastating, just normal digestion.”

All Star Charts — Steve Strazza / J.C. Parets SPX 7,400 first-ever close

All Star Charts headlines Tuesday’s Daily Beat with “There’s No Free Lunch on Wall Street” — Strazza acknowledging that the S&P 500’s first-ever close above 7,400 came on a tape that still made every stock “earn its spot in the rally,” and that Monday’s after-hours earnings reactions confirmed buyer control. The bigger thematic shift the desk is leaning into is the software rotation — Akamai’s “historic earnings reaction” Friday is the latest evidence that the group is “back” after a brutal 2025, and Strazza’s Top Down Trade of the Week (“Software strikes back”) fired Monday. Index has now closed higher six consecutive weeks.

Andrew Thrasher — Thrasher Analytics VIX squeeze; NDX 14%+ above 10-wk MA

Two-time Dow Award winner Andrew Thrasher used Monday afternoon to point his readers back at his 2017 “Forecasting Volatility” framework after a follower’s model fired a “Tsunami Alert” — Thrasher noted that “the last two VIX spikes after this signal were ~30% and ~55%.” On Sunday he flagged Nasdaq-100 sitting more than 14% above its 10-week moving average, a stretch level only seen in November 2022, November 2001, March 2000, November 1999, November 1998, January 1992 and February 1991 — and only 1991/1998/1999 avoided a subsequent negative response. The internals add weight: only 29% of large-caps up 5%+ over the trailing three months while 43% are down more than 5%.

Walter Deemer — Deemer Technical Research 6-wk +16% is 11th-biggest since 1950; ONLY non-bear-market analog

Retired-but-still-prolific dean of market technicians Walter Deemer used Monday to amplify two of the most uncomfortable stats in the bull file. Charlie Bilello’s table: the 16% S&P 500 gain over the last six weeks is the 11th-biggest six-week gain since 1950 — and the ONLY one of the top 20 not occurring during or just after a bear market. And Jason Goepfert’s grenade from Thursday: this is the 4th time the S&P 500 has hit a record high while 5% of its members fall to 52-week lows — prior cases were July 1929, January 1973, and December 1999. Deemer’s own preserved chart of INTC and his Whaley Price Thrust callout from May 6 keep the longer-term tape constructive — he’s not flipped, but the file of fragility is now in his weekend reading.

Wayne Whaley — Witter Lester 13-0 May 7-29 setup ON; May 15-22 historically 3-14

Wayne Whaley’s quant calendar work continues to throw off cross-currents. The 13-0 Nasdaq May 7-29 setup remains in force after the Nasdaq booked a 17.2% trailing-month gain into May 7 — every prior instance has produced a positive May 7-29 print averaging 3.55%. But Whaley’s Sunday May 10 follow-up adds a flashing yellow inside that green: when the S&P prints a fresh 12-month high in the first week of May (which happened May 1, 5, 6 and 8), it has averaged a 0.54% LOSS over May 15-22 with a 3-14 record across 17 prior years since 1950. Translation: trend says lean long into late May, but the next eight sessions historically chop.

J.C. Parets — All Star Charts NVDA > every country’s mkt cap except Japan/China

J.C. Parets opened the Tuesday tape with a flurry of provocations on X. The headline stat at 5:50 AM ET: “Nvidia is larger than the entire stock market of every country in the world except Japan and China,” posted moments after ZeroHedge clocked NVDA’s market cap above the entire S&P 500 healthcare sector. He then asked his followers “Is this the most bearish chart in the world?” Parets continues to push back on the 1999-2000 comparisons — calling them top-down “conspiracy theories” — but in the same breath retweeted the reminder that semis at 17.4% of S&P market cap leaves 83% of the index “with nothing to do with semiconductors.”

Cboe Daily Market Statistics — Put/Call Ratios Single-stock euphoria, index hedges UP

Cboe’s Monday May 11 final tape shows a sharp regime shift inside the headline put/call structure. Equity P/C COLLAPSED to 0.43 from 0.53 last Friday — a 19% week-on-week call-skew jump that puts retail/equity option appetite at its most call-heavy print in weeks, the same froth signature Krinsky and Thrasher are flagging. But SPX+SPXW P/C JUMPED to 1.28 from 1.14 (institutional index hedges going up) and VIX P/C nearly doubled to 0.65 from 0.36 (a flush of upside-vol calls / increased put bets on VIX itself, often a “no vol coming” signal). The setup is classic single-stock euphoria layered under quiet index protection — the same pattern that preceded the late-March pullback.

CNN Fear & Greed Index 66 Greed — 4 of 7 sub-components Extreme Greed

CNN’s Fear & Greed Index opened Tuesday at 66 — Greed — a one-point cooling from Monday’s close of 67, but a dramatic 28-point swing from a month ago when the gauge sat at 38 amid the Iran-shock washout. The internals tell a more important story than the headline: Market Momentum, Stock Price Strength, Put/Call Options and Safe Haven Demand are ALL in Extreme Greed, Market Volatility and Stock Price Breadth are Neutral, and Junk Bond Demand sits at Extreme Fear (a HY-spread quirk). Four of seven sub-components flashing Extreme Greed at a 66 reading means the gauge is being held DOWN by breadth and credit even as the price-action components scream.

NAAIM Exposure Index 96.67 (Q1 avg 82) — 3rd straight near-fully-invested

NAAIM active-manager equity exposure printed at 96.67 in the last weekly (posted Thu May 7, week ending May 6) — a third straight reading near triple-digits (94.15, 93.79, 96.67) and well above the Q1 2026 average of 82.00. The two-week MA continues to ride above 90 and the standard deviation of responses (43.28) has compressed materially from late March’s high-60s readings, meaning managers are now CONVERGING on the long side, not dispersing into hedged positions. That cluster around fully-invested is the textbook contrarian flag — when this index sustains above 95 with falling dispersion, forward six-week returns have historically been weaker than baseline.

Goldman Sachs Prime Brokerage Biggest tech deleveraging in 7 months

Goldman’s latest Prime Brokerage Insights flagged the BIGGEST single-week tech deleveraging in seven months last week, with HFs cutting net most since September 2025 and Mag-7 names now ~19% of total US net hedge-fund exposure versus ~11% in early April. The Gross Total Allocation (GTA) ticked lower for the first time in 13 weeks the week prior, and the Semis-over-Software rotation that defined April has begun reversing — corroborated by Strazza’s Akamai/software notes. Net leverage sits near three-year highs even after the cut, meaning the book remains long but has shed dispersion. With prime clients selling US tech for a fourth straight week, the institutional pain trade if breadth broadens further is being LONG semis vs. SHORT software.

VIX Term Structure — CBOE / VIX Central Contango intact; spot mid-teens

VIX spot sits ~15.8, inside the calm 15-20 band, with the term curve in healthy contango. The CNN Fear & Greed dashboard’s Market Volatility sub-component (VIX vs 50-day MA) reads “Neutral” Tuesday morning with VIX charted off recent mid-teens lows and tracking its 50-dma upward. The combination of low spot, an upward-sloping 1M-7M curve and Cboe’s VIX P/C jump to 0.65 (more puts on the VIX itself = bets vol stays suppressed) is a textbook complacency-with-tail-hedging mix. Watch the front-month VIX/VVIX ratio for the first hint that vol-of-vol is repricing ahead of the May 15-22 calendar pothole Whaley flagged.

Liz Ann Sonders — Charles Schwab Large-cap inflows / small-cap outflows

Sonders’ overnight/early-AM feed lit up with the day’s flow + macro stack. Headline data: April NFIB Small Business Optimism 95.9 (vs 96.1 estimate, 95.8 prior) with “share of owners expecting better business conditions” falling to 4% — fourth consecutive decline and the lowest reading since October 2024. Quality of labor remains the single most-cited problem. Sonders also flagged a meaningful flow rotation last week: U.S. LARGE-CAP ETFs took the largest inflows while U.S. SMALL-CAP ETFs saw the largest outflows — a quintessential late-cycle / late-rally barbell, exactly the rotation Apollo’s “Pharma big, Services small” spark is structurally explaining.

Stephanie Link — Hightower Advisors EW margins 14.3% vs old highs 14.5%

Link reframed the rally for clients Monday afternoon: SPX +17% and QQQ +27% from March 30 lows are NOT “narrative chasing” — they are tracking Atlanta Fed GDPNow at 3.7% and EPS growth of ~25%. Key positioning point: equal-weight S&P (RSP proxy) is up 11% with margins expanding to 14.3% — versus old highs at 14.5%. Translation: “productivity with growth” — i.e. the bull market has broadened off the Mag-7. Earlier last week she ran a string of AI-food-chain reads (AMD DC +57% YoY, Q2 server CPU revenue +70%; AMZN AWS +28%; MSFT Azure +40%; GOOGL Cloud +63%) and called this the “2nd inning” of electrification/data-center capex. Long ideas she flagged on tape May 5-11: MRVL, PANW, AVGO, NOW, SNPS, VRT, DHI, META, AMZN.

Apollo Daily Spark — Slok on industry structure “Pharma is big, Services are small”

Slok’s Monday May 11 spark flags an industrial-structure point with sector-rotation implications: pharma and insurance are dominated by large companies while services and construction are dominated by smaller ones. The implication: with tariff- and Hormuz-driven cost pressure squeezing small-business margins, the rotation INTO Pharma + Insurance and OUT of small-cap Services/Construction extends the Russell 2000 underweight theme. Pairs with this morning’s NFIB Small Business Optimism print (95.9 actual vs 96.1 expected, share-expecting-better-conditions at 4%) and Sonders’ large-cap-inflow/small-cap-outflow ETF tally.

Citi — Scott Chronert on NDX NDX PEG near two-decade lows

Citi strategist Scott Chronert told clients in a Monday note that the Nasdaq 100 remains the preferred AI-buildout vehicle vs more traditional large-cap-growth benchmarks. His framing: “Traditional valuations are high vs history, yet not excessively so.” Key tell — NDX price-to-earnings-growth (PEG) is near two-decade lows, suggesting investors are still being paid for the growth they’re buying. Caveat: implied growth expectations are demanding; companies must continue beating to sustain. Pair with the 34 S&P 500 names that hit new 52-week highs Monday — concentrated in semis (NVDA, AMD, AMAT, MU, INTC, TXN, MRVL-adj), networking/AI (Vertiv all-time, HPE, FTNT, GLW) and select consumer (SBUX, CVS).

GammaRoad — Jordan Rizzuto “Show me” market mechanics

GammaRoad Capital Partners CIO Jordan Rizzuto wrote in a Tuesday morning note that this remains a “show me” market — investors are increasingly unwilling to react to risks unless they materially disrupt economic or corporate fundamentals. After pandemic + inflation + rate-hikes + tariff cycles, the BTFD reflex is now structural. Importantly, Rizzuto adds a flow-mechanics reinforcer: retail flows into leveraged ETFs and call options force dealers to BUY underlying equities as hedges, and the rapid expansion of buffer funds + hedged-equity strategies provides additional downside protection — a self-feeding bid. This is the cleanest articulation of WHY the tape has compartmentalized Hormuz + Iran-ceasefire collapse so completely.

CFRA Research — Sam Stovall “Needs to catch its breath”

CFRA chief investment strategist Sam Stovall wrote Monday morning that after the S&P 500 posted its second-best April since 1945 (which historically signals continuation), the market “may need to take some time to catch its breath” before the next leg. As of May 6, SPX RSI closed in OVERBOUGHT territory, alongside overbought readings for Communication Services, Information Technology and the Nasdaq 100 itself. CFRA’s tactical view: digestion of gains offers a “buy the dip” opportunity to resume the run. Pair with JC O’Hara at Roth on Sunday: Consumer Discretionary has fallen to its WORST relative level vs SPX since late 2022. Both reads point to a near-term consolidation thesis post-CPI.

Wolfe Research — Tobin Marcus No return to hot war (base case)

Wolfe Research analyst Tobin Marcus wrote Monday that despite Trump’s “life support” framing, the political-risk read is that the US is unlikely to return to a hot war with Iran. Marcus highlighted that Trump’s decision not to treat last week’s low-level exchanges (US ships vs Iran, Iran missiles/drones at UAE) as ceasefire violations was telling. Sticking point: Iran’s enriched uranium. Tehran has offered to surrender it to a third country IF it can be returned upon US exit; Trump wants US physical possession, which Iran calls a red line. Practical positioning takeaway: oil-price tail risk is asymmetric headline-driven but Wolfe’s base case stays “no return to hot war” — supports the energy-equity carry trade and the BTFD reflex GammaRoad describes.

CNBC Daily Open — Asia edition Iran ceasefire “life support”

CNBC’s Asia Daily Open frames Tuesday around two narratives: (1) Trump’s Monday Oval Office admission that the US-Iran ceasefire is “on life support” and “unbelievably weak” — first explicit acknowledgement after weeks of insistence the truce held; (2) the looming Trump-Xi summit. Oil: Brent +3% to >$104 in the immediate response, WTI June +3% to $98.07; crude +40% since the Feb 28 start of the US/Israeli war on Iran. Trump + congressional Republicans floating federal gas-tax suspension to ease pump prices. Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser told the Q1 earnings call that even if Hormuz reopens “today” the rebalance takes months, and if delayed a few more weeks, normalization stretches into 2027. Summit guest list: Musk, Cook, Larry Fink — Jensen Huang notably absent.

FinancialJuice — Morning Juice (US Session Prep)

FinancialJuice’s pre-US-session sentiment: DXY and US Treasury yields surged ahead of CPI, with benchmarks at a one-week high heading into the $42B 10-year auction. Brent surged above $107/bbl on renewed Iran-ceasefire concerns. GBP/USD fell as much as 0.8% leading G-10 dollar losses; UK 30y gilt yields hit their highest since 1998 on UK political crisis. Bessent in Tokyo echoed Katayama that “excess FX volatility is undesirable.” Today’s docket: 08:30 ET CPI; 11:00 ET Trump print interview; 13:00 ET $42B 10y auction + Goolsbee Rockford (moderated Q&A).

Gotrade — Weekly US Market Outlook (May 11-15)

Gotrade’s weekly preview describes April CPI as the “single biggest market catalyst this week” with reads above 0.3% core flagging energy bleed into non-energy categories — the print landed at 0.4%, validating exactly that concern. Other key prints: Wed May 13 PPI (validate producer-level pressure), Thu May 14 Retail Sales (consumer demand post energy-spike), Fri May 16 prelim UMich Sentiment. On earnings — CSCO Wed AMC (cons EPS $0.92, rev $14B — enterprise-AI proxy); BABA Wed BMO (cons rev $36B, 13 of last 14 revisions down, options pricing ±5.9%); AMAT Thu AMC ($2.68, options pricing ±8.7%). Three rally drivers last week: AI/memory chip demand (Roundhill Memory ETF +~30% in 5 sessions); US-Iran de-escalation hopes; market betting Warsh-led Fed will be more dovish.

Kiplinger — This Week’s Earnings Calendar (May 11-15) WMT NOT this week

Kiplinger confirms the published cadence: Tuesday May 12 BMO — AZN ($2.49), ARMK ($0.47), Zebra ($4.25), On ($0.27), Tencent Music ($1.37), Under Armour (−$0.02). Tuesday AMC — Oklo (−$0.19), Franco-Nevada ($2.12), JBS ($0.20), Resideo ($0.60). Wed BMO — BABA ($6.14), Birkenstock ($0.59), Dynatrace ($0.39), Tower Semi ($0.56), Wix ($1.24). Wed AMC — CSCO (Kiplinger cons EPS $1.04 on $15.6B revenue, +8.3% YoY EPS / +10% YoY rev). Thu BMO — Canada Goose, Klarna (post-IPO), Nova ($2.19), YETI ($0.18). Thu AMC — AMAT ($2.68), CAE, Figma, Globant, Rumble. Fri BMO — RBC Bearings ($3.33). NOTE: NO Walmart this week — WMT FY27 Q1 release is Thursday May 21.

Reuters Morning Bid — Mike Dolan (anchor frame) EPS revisions up to 23%

Carryover anchor framing from Reuters’ Mike Dolan: full-year S&P 500 EPS growth forecasts have been revised UP to as high as 23% (from 18% just a month prior). Morgan Stanley sees hyperscaler capex growth exceeding $800B this year and $1.1T next year; Goldman Sachs sees cumulative AI capex spend to 2031 of $7.6T. This is the bull-side EPS engine that anchors the HSBC + Yardeni target raises this week. Dolan: “Markets remain torn between the precarious geopolitical situation on the one hand and dramatic upgrades to U.S. earnings growth and AI spending forecasts on the other” — captures the entire two-sided tape going into the day.

CNBC Asia Markets Live — Justina Lee · Lim Hui Jie JGB 10y at 1997 high

Asia traded mixed Tuesday as desks shrugged off Trump’s “massive life support” framing of the ceasefire. Nikkei 225 +0.52% to 62,742.57; Topix +0.83%. Kospi −2.29% to 7,643.15 after Monday’s fresh record. ASX 200 −0.36% to 8,670.70. Hong Kong Hang Seng −0.16%. CSI 300 −0.08% to 4,948.05. Nifty 50 −1.27%. The fixed-income tell: Japan 10y JGB hit 2.545%, highest since 1997, after BOJ minutes revealed some board members say the BOJ “should raise rates soon.” Trump quote: “I would say the ceasefire is on massive life support, where the doctor walks in and says, ‘Sir, your loved one has approximately a 1% chance of living.’”

Treasury — $42B 10-Year Note Auction (Tue 13:00 ET) First post-CPI auction

$42B 10-year reopens at 13:00 ET — first post-CPI auction of the refunding cycle (3y went Mon, 30y Wed). Prior 10y: high yield 4.282%, bid-to-cover 2.43. With DXY + UST yields already at one-week highs heading into the print and the UK 30y gilt at the highest since 1998 (cross-asset duration-stress overhang), tail risk on the auction sits on the upside after the hot 3.8% / 2.8% CPI. Indirect bidder share + tail vs WI yield is the single biggest tell of cross-border duration appetite under the Powell-to-Warsh transition. Goolsbee speaks at the same hour (Rockford Chamber, moderated Q&A) — dovish counter-balance.

Nick Timiraos — WSJ Chief Economics “Neutral pivot depends on inflation”

The Fed Whisperer framed Monday’s setup as a pivot to a “neutral” debate inside the FOMC — where the probability of the next move being a hike or cut becomes roughly equal — and made clear the resolution “will depend almost entirely on future inflation data.” With this morning’s 0.4% m/m core print sticky to the upside, that probability has shifted FURTHER from a near-term cut. Timiraos has consistently emphasized the labor market as the swing variable and read March’s CPI overshoot as a “lose-lose” optics moment for Powell heading into his final FOMC presser cycle. Friday’s chair handoff to Warsh now lands directly into a tape where the market is being asked to price a Fed that may not cut at all in 2026 (Hartnett’s “~5bp priced” framing).

ZeroHedge — “Trading the Blockade” WTI $100 / Hormuz “1% chance”

ZeroHedge has been on the Hormuz tape leading into Tuesday, framing the Iran-ceasefire collapse as the “Trading the Blockade” theme of the week. Crude jumped 3% to near $100/bbl Monday after Trump’s “life support” remarks, with US pump gas at $4.50 and the Saudi Aramco CEO telling investors that Hormuz traffic normalization stretches into 2027 even if the strait reopens “today.” ZeroHedge also flagged a 2000-comparable in the price-action signature — Kobeissi’s SOX-23%-of-SPX print and Burry’s “last months of 1999-2000” Sunday post — making it the most-circulated bear-side macro narrative on the screen this morning.

The Kobeissi Letter — bond market focus 10Y > oil as real stress

Kobeissi’s overnight feed circled the bond tape rather than the energy tape as the cleaner stress gauge for Tuesday — UK 30y gilts at the highest since 1998, JGB 10y at 2.545% (highest since 1997), and the US 10y already at a one-week high heading into CPI. The “Policy Shift Zone” framework — 4.50-4.70% on the US 10y — remains the key risk-off band Kobeissi has flagged through the Iran cycle. With the auction at 13:00 ET and ~$42B of supply hitting the same tape that has to price a 3.8% headline CPI print, the indirect-bidder share is the single most-important data point of the afternoon. Cross-asset duration stress is now the macro story; oil is the catalyst, not the driver.

Walter Bloomberg — @DeItaone Real-time wire relay

The principal real-time desk wire continues to alternate between Iran/Hormuz headlines (Trump’s “1% chance of living” line on the ceasefire) and the AI capex cycle. Overnight handled the BOJ minutes leak (some board members “should raise rates soon” — JGB 10y at 2.545%), Bessent’s Tokyo session with Takaichi/Katayama on rare-earths and weak yen, and the Trump-Xi summit guest list (Musk, Cook, Fink, Boeing Ortberg — Huang notably absent). The hot 8:30 print landed into a wire tape already saturated with cross-asset duration stress.

Polymarket / CME FedWatch ~5bp 2026 cuts priced

Polymarket and CME FedWatch heading into Tuesday had the market pricing roughly 5bp of Fed cuts for all of 2026 per Hartnett’s Flow Show framing — a near-flat path that the hot CPI print just pushed further toward zero. The June 16-17 FOMC is the first meeting under a presumptive-Warsh chair, and the market wants to price both inflation that’s hardening and a chair who has been explicit about a more accommodative posture. Those two priors are in direct tension; the convergence trade (cut probability stays compressed) versus the divergence trade (Warsh dissent re-prices cuts back in) is the cleanest forward catalyst in front of the day.

Charlie Bilello — market history desk +16% / 6 weeks — the lone non-bear-tied analog

Bilello’s Monday X feed surfaced two stats that every breadth tactician is now reading. First: the S&P 500’s 16% gain over the last six weeks ranks 11th-biggest since the 1950s and is the ONLY one of the top-20 not occurring during or just after a bear market — a uniqueness Walter Deemer amplified the same day. Second: Mexico delivered its 15th rate cut of the cycle (25bp) — the global easing trade is still alive even as the Cleveland Fed nowcast pushes the Fed firmly on hold. Bilello’s Week-in-Charts from May 7 (carryover) frames gold as the dominant Signal-or-Noise discussion entering this week, exactly where Hartnett also lands.

Atlanta Fed — GDPNow Q2 estimate 3.7%

The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model estimate for Q2 2026 real GDP growth stands at 3.7% (SAAR) as of May 8 — unchanged from May 7 after a brief dip to 3.5% on May 1. Latest update folded a jump in real gross private domestic investment growth (8.6% → 9.2%) against a small downshift in personal consumption (2.7% → 2.6%). 3.7% is the trajectory Stephanie Link cited Monday as evidence the rally “is not narrative chasing.” Next scheduled update is later this week; advance Q2 GDP release is the second half of July. Apollo’s Slok corroborates: “no signs of a full-blown credit cycle” — the macro backdrop remains the Goldilocks case anchoring Yardeni / RBC / HSBC / Wilson target raises.

Cleveland Fed — Inflation Nowcasting Apr 3.56 / May prelim 3.89%

The Cleveland Fed’s Inflation Nowcasting model pinned April CPI at +0.45% m/m / +3.56% y/y headline and +0.21% m/m / 2.5-2.6% y/y core into Monday — slightly below the BLS print that actually hit at 3.8% y/y / 2.8% core. The Cleveland model’s preliminary May nowcast already points to 3.89% y/y headline, meaning the path-of-least-resistance on inflation through summer is HIGHER, not lower, before the Hormuz-driven energy pass-through fades. This is the cleanest data-side rebuttal to the Warsh-dovish-from-day-one trade.

NFIB — April Small Business Optimism 95.9 / share-better-conditions 4%

The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for April printed at 95.9 — a fractional miss vs the 96.1 consensus and just above the March 95.8. The most important sub-detail: the share of owners expecting better business conditions fell to 4%, the fourth consecutive monthly decline and the lowest since October 2024. Single most-cited problem remains Quality of Labor, followed by Taxes. The release confirms a structurally below-average small-business backdrop even as large-cap profits sit at record highs — the bifurcation Apollo’s Slok and NY Fed’s Liberty Street pieces both quantify. Pairs cleanly with Sonders’ Tuesday flag of large-cap-ETF inflows / small-cap-ETF outflows.

NY Fed — Survey of Consumer Expectations Gas expectations 9.4%

The NY Fed’s Survey of Consumer Expectations has median one-year inflation expectations elevated at 3.4%, three-year at 3.1%, and gas-price expectations at 9.4% (highest since March 2022) on the Iran/Hormuz energy spike. Food expectations at 6.0%, rent at 7.1%. The SCE entered the May 12 CPI print as a pre-conditioning data point on how anchored consumer inflation expectations actually are under the energy shock — and the answer, today, is “less anchored than the FOMC would like.” This is the household-level corroborant to the Cleveland Fed Nowcast’s hot-headline call.

University of Michigan — Final April Sentiment

The final University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for April was revised to 49.8 from the preliminary 47.6 — still the weakest reading on the post-1978 series. One-year inflation expectations 4.7%, five-year at 3.5%. The May preliminary releases Friday May 16 and will be the first read on whether the post-April-30 SPX record-print rally has lifted household sentiment alongside the brokerage statements. With small-business optimism stuck in the 95-96 band and large-cap profits at record highs, the UMich household read is the K-shape canary the strategist desk will be watching most carefully on Friday.

NY Fed — Liberty Street Economics K-shape research (May 6)

NY Fed’s Liberty Street Economics published research on May 6 documenting the increasingly K-shape consumer recovery, with high-income households driving consumption while low- and middle-income spending stagnates under the cumulative tariff + energy + service-price burden. Read with this morning’s NFIB print and the NY Fed SCE’s recent gas-expectation spike to 9.4%, the small-business + lower-income consumer is the cleanest weak link in the economy. This is the data backbone behind Rosenberg’s “tiring bubble vision” framing and Slok’s “Pharma big, Services small” rotation thesis.

Senate floor — Warsh Fed Chair confirmation Cloture 49-44 Mon, votes this week

The Senate voted 49-44 Monday evening to invoke cloture on Kevin Warsh’s Fed nomination, with only Fetterman (D-PA) and Coons (D-DE) crossing party lines — the most partisan Fed-chair confirmation runway in the institution’s history. The full Senate is expected to confirm Warsh first as Fed governor (Tuesday vote) then concurrently as chair for the four-year term (Wednesday vote), seating him before Powell’s chair term expires Friday May 15. The “hot CPI plus dovish-Warsh-incoming” tension is now the cleanest macro frame on the screen: the market is pricing only ~5bp of Fed cuts (per Hartnett), but Warsh’s confirmed-by-Friday status is what’s keeping rate-cut path optionality alive — Yardeni’s quote that the 3.56% Nowcast “would constrain Warsh from easing monetary policy from day one” is now even more pointed at 3.8% actual.

Austan Goolsbee — Chicago Fed President (today 13:00 ET) Dovish FOMC voter

Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee — the most consistently dovish FOMC voter — addresses the Greater Rockford Chamber of Commerce Luncheon at 13:00 ET with a moderated Q&A immediately after. He will be the FIRST FOMC voice on a hot 3.8% headline / 2.8% core CPI print, hitting the tape at the same hour as the $42B 10y auction. Goolsbee’s prior framing has separated “transitory supply-side passthrough” (his preferred description of oil + tariff inflation) from “underlying inflation” — a Tuesday repeat of that distinction would push the cut-path tail back open and provide a counter to the post-CPI tape selloff. The cross-week speaker stack adds Collins and Kashkari later in the week.

Jerome Powell — Final Five Days at the Fed

Powell’s chair term expires Friday May 15, ending the most consequential 8-year tenure since Volcker. With no FOMC meeting on the calendar this week and the chair in passive-handoff mode, Powell’s final-week role is limited to procedural press matters and a likely closed-door transition meeting with Warsh. The market is using his exit window primarily as a coincident catalyst with the inflation print and the auction tail; structurally, the chair seat is already trading as if Warsh sits in it, which is what makes Tuesday’s 8:30 print so pivotal — it shapes the framing for whatever Warsh’s first public remarks turn out to be.

FEDS Notes & NY Fed Liberty Street — Research Channel

With Powell in transition and FOMC speakers in mostly procedural-comment mode, the Board’s FEDS Notes and the NY Fed’s Liberty Street Economics remain the live signal channel. The May 6 Liberty Street piece on K-shape consumer dynamics, combined with NFIB Small Business at 95.9 and UMich Sentiment final at 49.8, sketches a household sector that is decoupled from the corporate profit cycle in a way the FOMC will have to grapple with even if Warsh prefers a more accommodative monetary stance. NY Fed Staff Reports on basis-trade plumbing and Treasury-market liquidity sit alongside the inflation-expectations work as the institutional pre-read for the next round of policy framing.