Big tech swaggers through the tariff smoke
|Wall Street swagger-bombed the tape. With half the planet still nursing a May-Day hangover, the Nasdaq 100 punched another +1.1% and has now plastered on a surreal +16% in just sixteen sessions—one of only four such melt-ups this century. The S&P 500 tagged 5,650 intraday and coasted back above its 50-DMA, hoisting the risk barometer clean out of the tariff-shock ditch that spooked everyone on April 2. Liquidity was gossamer-thin, but that only juiced the squeeze: top-of-book depth is still a $3 mm kiddie pool, so micro-lots kick up 25-point mini-rips—a traders’ fever dream.
The trigger? A fresh blast of Big-Tech nirvana. Meta’s DAU money-machine and Microsoft’s Cloud-AI chimera torched every whisper number in sight, then word hit that Washington may loosen the export handcuffs on Nvidia chips headed for the UAE—cue an instant bid across the silicon complex. Tonight’s Apple print ($95.4 bn top-line, EPS +8% y/y) and Amazon’s beat-and-raise side-show only added lighter fluid after hours, promising another FOMO gong show after the dust settles on a significant 0-DTE profit-taking near the close, which dragged all the majors down.
The market is leaning hard into a “peak-tariff, peak-angst” narrative: if AI capex can barrel ahead under 145% levies, why worry about the soft survey wobbles?
Rates tried to rain on the parade—10-year yields popped to 4.23% as Fed-cut odds leaked air—but Treasury Secretary Bessent’s nod that policy should tilt easier gave the equity bulls all the cover they needed. The 2-year still leads the dance, trading below Fed funds and signalling that Powell’s eventual pivot is baked in the cake.
Dollar bulls rode the tech-exceptionalism wave: DXY keeps grinding, while yen bulls got stuffed as the Boj kicked the next hike into the long grass—USDJPY tracking Ro/Ro ( risk on risk off ) mood like a shadow after losing any semblance of a BoJ hawkish anchor.
Gold cracked a two-week low as the trade war thawed, but held at the $3,200 London line after a well-coordinated China speculator dump occurred during the Asian trading hours. Meanwhile, crude snapped a three-day losing streak as Trump rattled sabres at Iranian barrels.
Positioning is getting frothy: the S&P back over 20× forward earnings with Mag-7 breadth masking a lot of plywood underneath. But until someone torches the AI data center spend pipeline—or the NFP drops a true landmine—dip-devouring retail traders and algos rule the field. Friday’s jobs print is the next live grenade; anything short of a total face-plant probably keeps the bulls marching. Bottom line: tech exceptionalism just beat “Sell America” at its own game, liquidity be damned, and if Apple or Amazon whisper “capex up,” you’ll hear the chase bid scream to Asia’s catch-up session today.
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