Monday, May 19, 2025
Pre-market futures are down to start a new trading week, following five-straight up-sessions for the S&P 500. Last week, optimism on the tariff front took over, as talks between the U.S. and China appeared to be making progress. But over the weekend, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reminded us that if there are no trade deals after the 90-day pause, the reciprocal tariffs — many of them quite draconian — go back on.
Also, harkening back to Friday, Moody’s followed Fitch and S&P in downgrading U.S. credit — from AAA to AA1. Concerns over an increasing debt and larger fiscal deficits led to the move, and we now see bond yield rates going up as a result. Both 10-year and 2-year are up on the news — to +4.55% and +4.02%, respectively — as well as the 30-year yield, which has breached +5% for the first time since late 2023.
Thus, we are seeing some give-back in pre-market trading this morning. The Dow is currently -230 points, the S&P 500 is -60 and the Nasdaq -300. The small-cap Russell 2000 is -28 points at this hour. All four indexes are still up double-digits over the past month (off a low base) but are back into the red year-to-date.
What to Expect from the Stock Market Today
Compared to recent weeks, we quiet down on the economic report front. Today we’ll get a look at
U.S. Leading Economic Indicators (LEI)
after the market opens for the month of April. Expectations are for the fifth-straight down-month to -0.9%, from -0.7% reported a month ago.
What’s in Store for the Trading Week
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