Wall Street bulls charged into May on the back of a Friday surge, capping the S&P 500’s longest winning streak since 2004. The index climbed 1.5% to close the week up 2.3%, while the Nasdaq and Dow each rallied nearly 2.5%. What sparked the melt-up? A 177,000 jobs beat for April helped quiet fears of an imminent slowdown, even as the headline number was a step down from March’s revised 185,000. Markets saw it as “goldilocks,” enough to keep growth hopes alive without forcing the Fed to drastically cut rates to save the economy.

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China added fuel to the rally by softening its tone on trade, floating conditional talks if tariffs are reduced—a notable shift following weeks of tit-for-tat escalations. Meanwhile, the White House carved out a partial exemption for U.S. automakers importing foreign parts, seen as a tactical retreat in the tariff war. The optics were clear: Trump is posturing but blinking, and markets are sniffing a potential deal—or at least a pause.

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But under the hood, earnings were mixed. Apple tumbled 3.7% after flagging a $900M tariff hit, and Amazon dipped slightly on soft guidance. Yet Facebook and Microsoft reaffirmed their commitment for spending tens of billions on new data centers, extending the narrative that AI demand remains robust, not receding. The Nasdaq’s 2.7% weekly gain suggests investors are leaning into big tech again—especially after a brutal April.

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