Mid Day Recap: Markets Hit Records, The Church of AI Brings Bulls Back from the Dead…

Momma, we made it! 

Well it finally happened. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq just shrugged off months of geopolitical clusterf**cks, tariff chaos, and interest rate anxiety to hit all-time highs this Friday. And now, Wall Street’s risk tolerance is somewhere between “YOLO” and “what’s a credit default swap?”

(Source: Giphy) 

Why? Because today’s record is the offspring of two very important elements to economic resilience: AI and the seductive prospect of rate cuts. The market is high on its own supply, convinced that the Fed will swoop in with scissors and snip rates the second someone looks even a little bit salty about their mortgage payment (a.k.a. me). Powell could walk on stage and read the Cheesecake Factory menu, and traders would find a way to price in three cuts by August. 

(Source: Yahoo Finance) 

Of course, the other half of this sugar rush is the sudden, magical belief that trade wars are over and the world is ready to hold hands and sing Kumbaya. Trump’s tariff circus from April was apparently a warm-up act. Now we’re being spoon-fed “frameworks” and “agreements” with China and the UK, and now it single-handedly has investors and the market all hot and bothered. Never mind the actual details… all investors heard was “deadline not critical” and “rate cuts” and immediately forgot to spell “recession”. 

Additionally, if you’re looking at WWII, sorry that’s been moved to 2026. Now that Daddy Trump has the two kids in order, investors are right back to snorting FOMO. For instance, since the lows in April, the S&P 500 is up 23.5%, the Nasdaq a face-melting 32%, and even the Dow managed to stumble 2.8% higher this year. The only thing moving faster is the collective amnesia about all the risks that supposedly mattered last quarter. 

(Source: Giphy) 

As for the plot twist laid underneath the bullish-chest thumping, the US economy is quietly limping on the labor market front. Jobless claims fell by 10,000 last week, but continuing claims… a.k.a. people stuck on unemployment… just hit the highest level since November 2021. To be fair, layoffs are “historically low,” but hiring is cooked. 

Additionally, when it comes to GDP, the economy actually shrank at a 0.5% annual pace last quarter, which really just means “don’t look behind the curtain.” With that said, imports spiked almost 38% because everyone panic-bought foreign goods before Trump could slap tariffs on them. Durable goods orders soared, but only because Boeing finally sold a few planes that didn’t burst into flames (fyi those numbers don’t include the recent Air India catastrophe). 

(Source: Giphy) 

But alas, stocks are still ripping on a heater because nobody cares about risk, everyone believes in the Church of Artificial Intelligence, and the only inflation anyone’s worried about is in their own ego. Of course, anything can change over the course of today and over the weekend… but all in all, things are looking up. Behind the curtain though… that’s a different story. Until next time, friends… 

At the time of publishing, Stocks.News does not hold positions in companies mentioned in the article.