The Week In Review 06/09/25
“I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.” – Thomas Jefferson
Good Morning ,
There was a lot of drama in the market last week, the most prominent of which was the reconciliation bill feud between Elon Musk and President Trump that blew up on Thursday, triggering a 14.3% decline in Tesla's stock price.
All is not well in Camelot!
Fortunately, none of that really distracted the stock market, which enjoyed another winning week behind the leadership of the small-cap stocks and mega-cap stocks.
There were a lot of gains to go around, including NVIDIA and the semiconductor stocks pacing the pack.
The week ended on a high note… as the S&P 500 reclaimed the 6,000 level in the wake of a pleasing employment report for May.
It did so with Treasury yields rising sharply, suggesting perhaps that some rebalancing out of bonds and into stocks might have been providing a tailwind.
The communication services (+3.2%), information technology (+3.0%), and energy (+2.2%) sectors were the best-performing sectors last week. The consumer staples (-1.6%), utilities (-1.1%), and consumer discretionary (-0.6%) sectors were the only sectors that did not show a gain for the week.
In any case… the stock market did not look overly concerned on Friday as the 10-yr note yield rose to 4.51%.
The May employment report was a welcome end to a week that was filled with notable macro developments:
- OPEC+ agreed to raise production by 411,000 barrels per day in July.
- The OECD downgraded its 2025 global GDP growth forecast to 2.9% from 3.1% and its U.S. GDP growth forecast to 1.6% from 2.2%.
- President Trump said that President Xi is "very tough, and extremely hard to make a deal with." That view preceded a phone call between the two leaders, a summary of which sounded more conciliatory than combative and included an agreement to have their respective trade teams meet again soon.
- The ADP Employment Change Report for May indicated that there were only 37,000 jobs added to private-sector payrolls (consensus 115,000) and none for small businesses, which lost 13,000 jobs.
- The ISM Services PMI for May printed a contractionary reading (49.9%) for only the fourth time in the last 60 months.
- Elon Musk decried the one big, beautiful bill on social media and urged lawmakers to "kill the bill."
- The European Central Bank voted to cut its key interest rates by 25 basis points, as expected, and officials suggested that might be the end of the rate cuts.
- The trade deficit plunged in April to $61.6 billion (consensus: -$117.2 billion) from an upwardly revised deficit of $138.3 billion (from -$140.5 billion) in March. Exports were $8.3 billion more than March exports, but imports were $68.4 billion less than March imports.
- President Trump said his top trade representatives, who include Treasury Secretary Bessent, Commerce Secretary Lutnick, and U.S. Trade Representative Greer, will meet Monday in London with representatives from China in reference to the trade deal.
- The May employment report was better than feared and frankly good enough to lend confidence to the idea that the U.S. economy has enough labor market footing to remain on a growth trajectory.
Much to digest!
Consumer Confidence has been a metric closely watched…
Source: Raymond James Equity Research
Consumer spending is paramount to the health of our economy!
Volatility has been unprecedented in 2025…
Source: Raymond James Equity Research
Often, the best strategy is to not do anything… and to stay with our investment plan, ignoring the noise and distraction.
Deciding to NOT do anything is an absolute decision, many investors sold in the April crash… will they buy back in?
Have a fantastic week!!
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