The S&P 500 is now up in three of the last four weeks, and also up every day this week, closing Friday at 5,958. The kickoff to this weeks bullishness started last weekend after the U.S. and China agreed to a 90-day tariff pause. That news sent stocks surging on Monday with the S&P 500 up 3.26%. Before Tuesdays open Aprils annual inflation rate eased from 2.4% to 2.3%, the lowest since February 2021. As such, this led to nice gains in the morning as the S&P 500 clawed back into positive territory for the year. Additionally, it was announced that Saudi Arabia has committed to investing $600 billion in the U.S., and that good news carried into Wednesday with the S&P 500 having another positive day. On Thursday we got the second inflation component of the week with the April producer price index declining 0.5% month-over-month, much less than the expected increase of 0.3%. Like Tuesday, that inflation news had the S&P 500 rallying for its fourth daily gain in a row. Fridays UMICH consumer sentiment index came in at its second-lowest level on record, but we did close out the week with five straight daily gains. However, after the close Moodys Ratings cut the United States sovereign credit rating down one notch to Aa1 from Aaa (the highest), citing the growing burden of financing the federal governments budget deficit. From a technical perspective we closed the week just shy of crossing above the 6,000 level on the S&P 500, and within 3% of breaking through the resistance level of 6,144 which was 19 Februarys record high. For next week well see Mondays morning reaction to the credit downgrade and then Thursdays existing home sales number, so it could be more of a consolidation week. For TSP TIPS the I fund made new record highs every day this week except for Wednesday. It also remains at the top of the Performance Ranking leaderboard, followed by the C and S funds. As such, we recommend no changes to our current investment mix.
The S&P 500 is now up in three of the last four weeks, and also up every day this week, closing Friday at 5,958. The kickoff to this weeks bullishness started last weekend after the U.S. and China agreed to a 90-day tariff pause. That news sent stocks surging on Monday with the S&P 500 up 3.26%. Before Tuesdays open Aprils annual inflation rate eased from 2.4% to 2.3%, the lowest since February 2021. As such, this led to nice gains in the morning as the S&P 500 clawed back into positive territory for the year. Additionally, it was announced that Saudi Arabia has committed to investing $600 billion in the U.S., and that good news carried into Wednesday with the S&P 500 having another positive day. On Thursday we got the second inflation component of the week with the April producer price index declining 0.5% month-over-month, much less than the expected increase of 0.3%. Like Tuesday, that inflation news had the S&P 500 rallying for its fourth daily gain in a row. Fridays UMICH consumer sentiment index came in at its second-lowest level on record, but we did close out the week with five straight daily gains. However, after the close Moodys Ratings cut the United States sovereign credit rating down one notch to Aa1 from Aaa (the highest), citing the growing burden of financing the federal governments budget deficit. From a technical perspective we closed the week just shy of crossing above the 6,000 level on the S&P 500, and within 3% of breaking through the resistance level of 6,144 which was 19 Februarys record high. For next week well see Mondays morning reaction to the credit downgrade and then Thursdays existing home sales number, so it could be more of a consolidation week. For TSP TIPS the I fund made new record highs every day this week except for Wednesday. It also remains at the top of the Performance Ranking leaderboard, followed by the C and S funds. As such, we recommend no changes to our current investment mix.