A whirlwind of positive headlines from a Chinese trade détente to hundreds of billions of dollars in promised foreign investment in the U.S. lit a fire in the market and propelled the S & P 500 into the green every day last week. Monday started with a U.S.-China agreement, albeit temporary , to relax most of the tariffs imposed on each other’s import, giving room for both sides to step back from the brink of triple-digit levies and work together on a mutually beneficial trade deal. While President Donald Trump suggested he might talk soon with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Beijing was quiet on the prospect . The rest of the week was dominated by President Donald Trump’s four-day swing through the Mideast where he visited Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. At each stop, he announced a flurry of deals. The largest came Tuesday, with a Saudi pledge to invest $600 billion in the United States. The Club’s newest name, GE Vernova , was a big beneficiary and gained 7.2% for the week. During his trip, which ended Friday, the president traveled with more than 30 U.S. business leaders, including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang who cut a deal to sell more than 18,000 of cutting-edge Blackwell AI chips to Humain, a new artificial intelligence startup owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. Nvidia, far and away, was our best performing stock last week, with a gain of 16.1%. As for the broader market, the S & P 500 gained 5.3% for the week and turned positive for the year. The index has also jumped 7% so far in May and, at roughly the halfway point, was pacing to break a three-month losing streak. Not surprisingly, our trusted S & P Short Range Oscillator momentum indicator finished Friday in overbought territory, the 16th straight session above the threshold. In overbought markets, we tend to look for places to trim and book profits. Out of discipline , last week we trimmed Texas Roadhouse , Wells Fargo and Eaton after recent rallies. We still look all three for the long haul. While there were no Club earnings last week, unlike the coming days, investors got mostly encouraging economic data. On Tuesday, the consumer price index rose 0.2% in April, putting the 12-month inflation rate at 2.3%, the lowest since February 2021 . The April producer price index on Thursday showed a monthly 0.5% drop and a 2.4% year-over-year gain, the lowest since last fall . Tempering that enthusiasm, the University of Michigan’s monthly survey on Friday showed May consumer sentiment sliding to its second-lowest level on record as inflation expectations jumped on tariff concerns. Tech was the winner in last week’s market, with the Nasdaq posting a 7.15% weekly increase. It came as initial public offering activity heated up. On Tuesday, banking app Chime filed paperwork to go public . The following day, brokerage platform eToro had a successful public market debut , with shares closing up 29% in its first session. Increased IPO activity bodes well for the key investment banking arm of Goldman Sachs , which was tapped as a lead underwriter on Chime and eToro. Club stock Goldman was one of our best performers this week, gaining 9.2%. After Friday’s market close, Moody’s downgraded its rating on U.S. government debt to Aa1 from Aaa, which had been its highest-possible rating. The widening U.S. national debt load — and the rising cost of servicing those bonds — was cited as the reason for the change. Moody’s now joins rating agency peers Standard & Poor’s and Fitch in having the second-highest rating on the U.S. debt. The ripple effects of Moody’s downgrade will be something to watch in the week ahead. The calendar for economic data is light in the coming days, but earnings season is marching onward. Earnings A trio of Club names are set to report this week. Revenue and earnings estimates provided below are compiled by data provider LSEG. Home Depot kicks off the action Tuesday morning. We often say that for certain earnings releases, the guidance matters more than the backward-looking results a company provides. Home Depot’s first-quarter results will be a classic case of that dynamic. Adverse weather and a steady stream of tariff headlines likely early into the quarter created a bunch of noise that could’ve dampened customer purchases. Instead, investors want to hear how the second quarter — usually its highest revenue period each fiscal year — is shaping up as people plant gardens, fix up their lawns and embark on other summer projects. Has the cooling of U.S.-China tensions given customers any more confidence to spend? Of course, a key piece to the overall Home Depot story remains the housing market and whether mortgage rates will go lower, ginning up activity in that sector. While lower borrowing costs haven’t materialized yet, mortgage demand has nevertheless risen in back-to-back weeks , according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted index. We’ll be looking for Home Depot CEO Ted Decker’s insights into whether the company is seeing any pickup here. Revenue: $39.3 billion EPS: $3.59 Cybersecurity remains one of the most durable long-term investment themes out there — hacks can have serious implications for companies, as the recent Nucor and Coinbase incidents show. The question when Palo Alto Networks reports Tuesday night is about how much customers are spending on it in the here and now. Has the elevated geopolitical tensions in the recent months sparked any additional customer commitments? In addition to the headline revenue and earnings figures, there’s a few crucial metrics that determine how Palo Alto shares react to earnings. Those include remaining performance obligation (RPO), which measures the total value of contracted revenue yet to be delivered, and next-generation security annual recurring revenue (ARR). The company defines that metric as annualized revenue of all active contracts on the final day of the given reporting period for its Prisma, Cortex and QRadar products, along with certain cloud-delivered security services. Revenue: $2.28 billion EPS: 77 cents TJX Companies closes out the Club’s week of earnings Wednesday morning. We’ve said for months that few companies are better positioned to navigate a period of supply chain disruptions and consumers fearing higher prices than TJX. It benefits from both of those dynamics — the former can lead to excess inventory at other retailers that TJX can buy at discounts and then fill its stores with, while the latter makes its reputation for offering good deals even more attractive to shoppers. In February, TJX quantified its direct exposure to Chinese imports as an “extremely small percentage,” but the downstream effects of the U.S.-China trade war — like those aforementioned supply disruptions — still figure to be a big topic of conversation on Wednesday’s call. Same-store sales and margins are key metrics to watch here, along with the usual suspects of revenue and earnings per share. Revenue: $13.03 billion EPS: 90 cents Week ahead Monday, May 19 Before the bell: ZIM Integrated Shipping Services (ZIM), ICL Group (ICL) After the bell: Trip.com Group (TCOM), Qifu Technology (QFIN) Tuesday, May 20 Before the bell: Home Depot (HD) , Viking Holdings (VIK), Amer Sports (AS), Canaan (CAN), Elbit Systems (ESLT) After the bell: Palo Alto Networks (PANW) , Toll Brothers (TOL), ViaSat (VSAT), Keysight Technologies (KEYS), Modine Manufacturing (MOD) Wednesday, May 21 Before the bell: Baidu (BIDU), Lowe’s Companies (LOW), Target (TGT), TJX Companies (TJX) , VF Corp (VFC), Medtronic (MDT), XPeng (XPEV), Wix.com (WIX) After the bell: Snowflake (SNOW), Zoom Communications (ZM), Urban Outfitters (URBN) Thursday, May 22 Initial weekly jobless claims at 8:30 a.m. ET S & P Global Flash U.S. PMI at 9:45 a.m. ET Existing home sales at 10 a.m. ET Before the bell: Analog Devices (ADI), Advance Auto Parts (AAP), BJ’s Wholesale Club (BJ), Ralph Lauren (RL), TD Bank (TD) After the bell: Intuit (INTU), Autodesk (ADSK), Ross Stores (ROST), Deckers Outdoor (DECK), Workday (WDAY) Friday, May 23 New home sales at 10 a.m. ET Before the bell: Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH) (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust.) 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The U.S. and Chinese flags are seen on the day of a bilateral meeting between the U.S. and China, in Geneva, Switzerland, May 10, 2025.
Keystone/eda/martial Trezzini | Via Reuters
A whirlwind of positive headlines from a Chinese trade détente to hundreds of billions of dollars in promised foreign investment in the U.S. lit a fire in the market and propelled the S&P 500 into the green every day last week.
