Good Afternoon. April will go in the record book. The S&P 500 climbed above 7,250 to a fresh closing high, the Nasdaq Composite added another record of its own, and the Dow finished the month with its best four weeks since November 2024. Apple stepped up to the earnings line after Thursday's bell, beat on revenue and EPS, and rose roughly 5% Friday. Here’s to the weekend.

—Rosie, Wyatt, Evan & Conor

🔥 What’s Hot: 🔥

🥶 What’s Not: 🥶

1. Apple Beats on iPhone, China, and Services — Stock Climbs Roughly 5%

The News: Apple reported fiscal Q2 2026 results after Thursday's close, posting revenue of $111.2 billion (+17% year over year) and EPS of $2.01, both topping consensus of roughly $109.7 billion and $1.95 respectively. iPhone revenue hit a March-quarter record of $56.99 billion, Services climbed about 16% to $26.65 billion, and Greater China sales returned to growth. Shares rose roughly 5% in early Friday trading. The print also lands ahead of the previously announced September 1 leadership transition, when John Ternus succeeds Tim Cook as CEO and Cook moves to executive chairman.

Why It Matters: For investors, Apple closed the loop on a hyperscaler week that delivered the best combined cloud growth of the AI cycle. Microsoft's 40% Azure, Alphabet's 63% Cloud, AWS at 28%, and now Apple beating across iPhone, China, and Services pulls the "AI is mostly capex" worry off the table for one more quarter. For consumers, the China rebound matters: it suggests iPhone 17 demand is real and broad enough to offset the tariff drag analysts had penciled in. The Ternus handoff watch starts in earnest this fall.

What to Watch: The June-quarter guide, services margin commentary, and any incremental tone from management about the September 1 transition. With Apple's market cap pushing toward $4 trillion again, every dollar of services growth is index-moving.

Source: CNBC

2. S&P 500 and Nasdaq Close April at Record Highs After Best Month in Years

The News: The S&P 500 climbed about 0.64% Friday to roughly 7,254 — a fresh all-time closing high — while the Nasdaq Composite also set a record. The Dow finished slightly higher to round out an April in which the S&P rose more than 10%, the Nasdaq added more than 15%, and the Dow gained more than 7%. The 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.39%. Volatility, measured by the VIX, fell more than 10% to roughly 16.7, capping its largest monthly drop since 2024.

Why It Matters: For investors, the takeaway from April is that a Fed hold with three dissents, a 2% Q1 GDP print, $115 Brent, and a Mag 7 split decision all coexisted with new highs. Breadth has improved — the Dow's gain came largely from financials and pharma rather than the tech complex — and a record close with the VIX in the mid-teens is the cleanest "risk on" signal of the year. For consumers, retirement balances are getting a quiet boost into a Berkshire weekend in Omaha that already has more than its share of milestones.

What to Watch: Next Friday's April nonfarm payrolls report (consensus near +165,000) and the FOMC's late-spring messaging tour. A second consecutive record month for the indexes typically pulls retail flows back in, and primary dealers are watching to see whether breadth widens further or narrows back to mega-cap tech.

Source: Yahoo Finance

3. Exxon and Chevron Open the Oil-Major Books on the $115 Brent Quarter

The News: Exxon Mobil reported Q1 2026 earnings of $4.2 billion, or $1.00 per share, with adjusted earnings of $1.16 once an identified item was removed. Excluding both that item and roughly $3.9 billion of "unfavorable estimated timing effects" from derivative marks, the company would have earned $8.8 billion ($2.09 per share). Chevron reported Q1 revenue of about $47.6 billion and adjusted EPS of $1.41, beating the $0.97 to $1.17 consensus range, with upstream earnings of $3.9 billion benefiting from higher oil and gas prices. CVX traded up roughly 1.3% on the report.

Why It Matters: For investors, both reports show that hedging and timing accounting muddied a quarter that, on the underlying upstream business, was actually stronger than the headline. Chevron's $1.41 print versus a $0.97 to $1.17 range is the kind of beat that should keep buyback cadence steady — Exxon already paid out $9.2 billion to shareholders in the quarter. For consumers, the more important number is upstream production: Exxon's 4.6 million barrels-of-oil-equivalent per day held up despite Middle East disruption, which keeps a lid on the panic-pricing narrative even with Brent in the $110s.

What to Watch: Whether the second quarter sees the timing-effect hedging losses unwind as both companies suggest, and how Conoco and Phillips 66 results next week compare on free cash flow conversion. If Brent stays sticky above $105, the dividend-and-buyback math gets significantly easier from here.

Source: Reuters

4. ISM Manufacturing Steady at 52.7 — Three Months of Growth Confirmed

The News: The Institute for Supply Management released its April 2026 Manufacturing PMI Friday at 10:00 a.m. ET, with the headline reading 52.7 — unchanged from March and matching the highest level since August 2022. New orders, production, and supplier deliveries all stayed in expansion, while employment remained in modest contraction. The reading kept the U.S. manufacturing sector in growth territory for a third straight month after a 10-month run of contraction in 2024 and 2025.

Why It Matters: For investors, this is the steadiest macro print of the week. Q1 GDP at 2%, ISM at 52.7, and a 10-year at 4.39% form a coherent picture: the U.S. economy is growing faster than the bear case suggested, and faster than the Fed's mid-cycle rate path assumed. For consumers, manufacturing employment still being in contraction is the quiet warning sign — the headline number masks the fact that supplier deliveries are slowing and prices are still elevated, both pressures that filter into goods inflation.

What to Watch: The Services PMI release Tuesday, which carries roughly 8x the GDP weight of manufacturing. If services holds above 53 and prices paid stays sticky, the Fed will have a hard time threading the "cut by September" needle.

Source: Trading Economics

5. Reddit Surges on a 69% Revenue Beat and a Q2 Guide Above the Street

The News: Reddit reported Q1 2026 revenue of $663 million, up 69% year over year and well ahead of the roughly $609 million consensus. Net income reached $204 million (a 31% margin), diluted EPS hit $1.01, and adjusted EBITDA more than doubled to $266 million. Daily Active Uniques rose 17% to 126.8 million. Management guided Q2 revenue to a range of $715 to $725 million — also above consensus. Shares climbed roughly 14% in early trading following Thursday's after-the-bell release.

Why It Matters: For investors, Reddit is shaping up to be one of the cleanest "AI-monetization in the wild" stories of 2026. Ad revenue grew 74% year over year, and the company is also licensing its content corpus to AI training providers. With a 91.5% gross margin and $311 million of free cash flow in a single quarter, the platform now looks more like a software business than a social-media one. For consumers, the message is that the platforms with structured human conversation are getting paid first as AI search rewires how content is found.

What to Watch: International ARPU growth (up 76% this quarter) and how much of the next leg comes from data-licensing rather than advertising. Watch for commentary on competition from Google's AI Overviews and how Reddit positions itself in that landscape.

Source: Yahoo Finance

6. Eurozone Inflation Re-Accelerates to 3% — ECB Hold Looks Tougher Now

The News: Eurostat's flash estimate for April 2026 showed eurozone consumer prices rising 3.0% year over year, up from 2.6% in March and 1.9% in February. Energy prices contributed the bulk of the move, climbing 10.9% versus 5.1% in March. Core inflation, which strips out food and energy, eased modestly to 2.2% from 2.3%. The data lands one week before the European Central Bank's policy meeting, where the consensus expectation is a hold at the 2.0% benchmark rate.

Why It Matters: For investors, the eurozone is now living the same story the U.S. lived in 2022 in miniature: an energy shock that keeps headline inflation well above target while core remains better behaved. The 3% print is the highest since late 2024, and it complicates the ECB's narrative that the Iran-conflict spillover would be transitory. For consumers, the squeeze is real: April's 1.3% monthly rise in services prices means restaurant, travel, and household-services bills all climbed in the same month gasoline did.

What to Watch: Next Thursday's ECB statement and President Lagarde's press conference. If the bank signals it is now in a holding pattern rather than easing, the euro could test recent highs against the dollar and DAX-leading exporters could feel margin pressure.

Source: CNBC

7. China Manufacturing PMI Holds at 50.3 — Just Above the Expansion Line

The News: China's official April manufacturing purchasing managers' index registered 50.3, down 0.1 point from March but still above the 50 threshold separating growth from contraction. The non-manufacturing PMI slipped to 49.4 from 50.1 — its first contraction reading of the year — pointing to a softer services sector. The private RatingDog China General Manufacturing PMI compiled by S&P Global, which weights small and export-oriented firms more heavily, came in at a stronger 52.2.

Why It Matters: For investors, the headline is "expansion held, just barely." Beijing's stimulus packages and front-loaded export shipments ahead of new tariffs have kept factory activity in growth, but services contracting is the new wrinkle. For consumers globally, China's slim factory-side margin is part of why goods prices have stayed contained even as energy has spiked — the deflationary impulse from Chinese manufacturing remains a meaningful counterweight to the inflationary impulse from Brent crude.

What to Watch: May trade data, due in early June, and any further fiscal-stimulus signals from the Politburo. If the non-manufacturing reading slides further below 50, the People's Bank of China will face renewed pressure to ease.

Source: Reuters

8. Berkshire Hathaway's First Annual Meeting Without Buffett at the Mic

The News: Berkshire Hathaway's 2026 annual meeting is scheduled for Saturday, May 2 in Omaha, the first to be held with Greg Abel as chief executive after Warren Buffett's January 2026 announcement that he would step back from day-to-day operations. Buffett, 95, remains chairman emeritus and a strategic voice on capital allocation but is not expected to take the stage. Abel and insurance chief Ajit Jain will lead the morning question-and-answer session, with subsidiary leaders joining later in the day.

Why It Matters: For investors, this is the most consequential Omaha weekend in six decades. Markets want to know how Abel plans to deploy roughly $300 billion in cash, whether the Apple stake remains a permanent core holding, and what the buyback cadence looks like in a record-high market. For consumers, the broader question is cultural: Berkshire's annual letter and meeting have shaped value-investing language for two generations, and Abel inherits both the audience and the expectation.

What to Watch: The first Q&A panel at 9:30 a.m. CT on Saturday and any prepared remarks on capital allocation. Watch closely for tone on technology investments, succession of subsidiary leadership, and whether Abel signals a different posture toward buybacks of Berkshire's own stock at current valuations.

Source: CNBC

Q: Why don't skeletons ever go to Disneyland?

A: They have no body to go with.

A dynamic in which a product or service becomes more valuable as more people use it — the classic example is a phone, which is useless to one person but indispensable when everyone has one. Network effects create defensible moats because new entrants must overcome the gravity of an installed base, not just match the product.

Usage: "Apple's $4 trillion valuation rests less on iPhone hardware margins and more on the Network Effect of 2.5 billion active devices, an App Store, iMessage, and AirDrop — every additional user makes leaving the ecosystem a little more expensive."

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