April 30, 2026

Markets:

Stock futures rose Thursday as traders parsed through the latest batch of corporate earnings, while oil prices declined slightly.

To be sure, S&P 500 and Nasdaq gains were kept in check as Meta Platforms and Microsoft lost 9% and 2%, respectively. Meta shares were weighed by the company’s latest capital expenditures guidance, while user growth disappointed. Microsoft pulled after it said spending will reach $190 billion due to high memory costs.

Oil prices reversed course Thursday, with Brent crude futures losing 3% to trade above $114 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate futures falling 2% to trade above $104. Crude prices rose Wednesday as overseas tensions remained high between the U.S. and Iran. The Wall Street Journal, citing U.S. officials, reported that President Donald Trump told his aides to prepare for an extended blockade of Iran.

Wall Street is coming off a mixed session, with the Dow losing more than 200 points on Wednesday while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq ended the session along the flatline.

That followed the Federal Reserve voting to hold interest rates steady in the range of 3.5% to 3.75%, as investors had largely expected, although the 8-4 vote marked the first time four Fed officials have dissented since 1992. The April Fed policy meeting will likely be Fed chair Jerome Powell’s last at the helm before his term ends next month. Kevin Warsh, Trump’s nominee to succeed Powell, appears on track to take over at the central bank.

A slew of economic data is also coming out on Thursday, including the preliminary first-quarter gross domestic product, or GDP, reading. Also due is the personal consumption expenditures report, or PCE — the Fed’s preferred gauge of inflation. Powell already said that core PCE, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, is expected to come in at 3.2% for March. Weekly jobless claims are also slated for release.

Thursday also marks the final trading day of April, a month that has seen a surge for tech names. The S&P 500 is on pace for a 9.3% advance, while the Nasdaq is heading for a 14.3% jump. Both indexes are on track for their best month since 2020. The Dow is set to end April with a 5.4% gain, its strongest monthly performance since November 2024.

Portfolio:

Monster April and BE was a beauty yesterday for us.  We told you what was developing, and we crushed April.  Now we are telling you, the greatest summer for traders is building.  If you do not see it, I truly feel sorry for you.  Do not look for reasons to not participate, this market is setting up for an absolute monster period.  Life changing period!  Last night earnings was a game changer.  It absolutely proves there is no AI bubble.  Backorders, current earnings, and outlook are all surging!  The AI/Tech revolution will provide you a period over the next 3 years that few understand.  Time has come!

We enter todays session – one with heavy data to come and earnings from AAPL – holding setups in ONDS, AXTI, TSLL, MSFU.  Queue is absolutely igniting based on data and price flow.  We will be looking to add over the next few sessions so anticipate new trades!

I want to leave you all with a statement the CEO of AMZN made yesterday.  This sector is not even their main business unit.  Take time to think on this statement and what it means:  

AMZN CEO: "If our chips business was a standalone business and sold chips produced this year to AWS and other third parties as other leading chip companies do, our annual revenue run rate would be $50 billion. As best as we can tell, our custom silicon business is now one of the top three data center chip businesses in the world. And the speed at which we've gotten here is extraordinary"

Now lets do GOOG and we won't get inot their stake with Anthropic.  GOOG numbers were absolutely incredible: Revenue +22%. Cloud +63%, up from +48% in Q4, with record margin at 33% despite huge capex. Search accelerated yet again to +19%. The opposite of dead! Total Op margin at 36.1% (+200bps) = staying lean!

Truly unreal. AI is exploding. Consumption of information is EXPLODING!  Understand what this drives!