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Brief · The Week
PrediXmarkets
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Market intelligence, condensed. |
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— THE OPEN
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The S&P 500 closed Friday at a record. So did the Nasdaq. But the FOMC voted four ways to keep the rate where it is, and Polymarket now prices most of 2026 with the Fed still standing still. The market that buys stocks and the market that prices money disagreed all week. They closed Friday in different cities. |
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The Fed Split Four Ways APR 29
The FOMC voted 8-4 to hold the federal funds rate at 3.50-3.75 percent — the most divided decision since October 1992. Three Reserve presidents (Hammack, Kashkari, Logan) wanted the easing bias dropped. One governor, Stephen Miran, wanted a cut. CME FedWatch now prices roughly 0 percent odds of any cut by December; Polymarket assigns 56.4 percent to zero cuts for the year. The committee that sets the price of money cracked four ways. The market that trades it now agrees on one thing.
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AI Capex, Three Different Receipts
Four hyperscalers reported Wednesday inside a single window. Alphabet drew the cleanest reward — Cloud revenue grew 63 percent to $20 billion, backlog nearly doubled to $460 billion, full-year capex guidance lifted toward $190 billion; the stock had its best session since April 2025. Amazon's AWS grew 28 percent, its fastest in fifteen quarters. Meta raised capex by $10 billion with no new revenue line attached and fell 7 percent after-hours. The market is no longer paying for AI spending in the abstract — only for AI spending with revenue attached.
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A Crack in the OpenAI Trade APR 28
A Wall Street Journal report Tuesday said OpenAI had missed its own internal targets for users and revenue, with CFO Sarah Friar concerned the company may not cover its compute commitments. Oracle fell more than 5 percent; Nvidia and AMD slid 1 and 3 percent. The semiconductor index ended an 18-day winning streak in one session. Nasdaq closed Friday at fresh highs, but the eighteen days reset the question that has driven this rally for two years: who, exactly, is paying for the chips.
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THE TAPE · WEEK ENDING MAY 1
Six weeks up. Best April since 2020. Best earnings growth since Q4 2021.
S&P 500 · CLOSE
May 1, all-time high |
7,230.12 |
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NASDAQ · CLOSE
first close above 25,000 |
25,114.44 |
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Q1 EARNINGS GROWTH
LSEG, blended y/y |
27.8% |
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2026 RATE CUT ODDS
Polymarket, zero cuts |
56.4% |
Equities priced the best earnings season in five years. Rates futures priced the Fed staying still all year. Both can be true at once.
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↑ Week's Winners
Qualcomm (+16%)
Seagate (+17%)
Reddit (+12%)
Visa, Eli Lilly (+9-10%)
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↓ Week's Losers
Spirit Airlines (-62%)
Roblox (-21%)
Robinhood (-10%)
Spotify, Meta (-7-9%)
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Since 1945, the S&P has averaged a 2 percent gain from May through October — and a 7 percent gain from November through April. The stretch ahead is the weakest six-month window of the calendar; the stretch just behind us was the strongest April for the S&P and Nasdaq since 2020. Sell in May was not written for an earnings season blending at 27.8 percent year-over-year, the best print since the fourth quarter of 2021. The next six months will say whether eighty years of seasonal habit outranks five years of fundamentals.
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The Week's Quote
"
If we need to hike, we will certainly signal that and we will certainly do it.
— Jerome Powell, Federal Reserve Chair · FOMC press conference · April 29
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WEEK AHEAD · MAY 4–8
Tuesday — AMD reports after the close; ISM Services PMI at 10:00. Friday — April nonfarm payrolls and the unemployment rate at 8:30, the first labor read since the FOMC split. Disney, Uber, Coinbase, and Airbnb fill the days between. Roughly half the S&P has now reported. The other half meets the strongest seasonal headwind of the year.
— The PrediXmarkets desk
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For informational purposes only. Not investment advice.
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