Records Hit. Records Lost. Records Hit Again.

Weekend Market Recap | Saturday, April 25, 2026

The Week That Was

Records broken. Records lost. Records broken again. Friday closed the week at fresh all-time highs after a midweek selloff threatened to derail the rally. The S&P 500 finished at 7,164, up 0.80 percent on Friday and notching its fourth straight weekly gain. The Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.63 percent to close at 24,837, also a new record. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was the lone holdout, slipping 81.58 points to 49,228 as energy and defensive names lagged the tech surge. The Russell 2000 added 0.43 percent to 2,786, with small caps outperforming on the week.

The Story Beneath The Numbers

This was a week of whipsaws. Tuesday opened with fear that the US-Iran ceasefire would lapse, and stocks sold off hard. Wednesday delivered the indefinite ceasefire extension and a fresh record close. Thursday brought the software rout, with IBM down more than 8 percent and ServiceNow collapsing nearly 17 percent on disappointing forward commentary. Friday flipped the narrative again on the back of Intel's blowout earnings and a confirmed Tesla foundry partnership. Five sessions, three regime shifts.

Macro Pulse

Oil climbed for a fifth straight day on Friday, the longest streak since January. Brent traded above $105 most of the week. The Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed, and US negotiators are now headed to Islamabad for talks with Iran's foreign minister this weekend. The University of Michigan consumer sentiment final reading came in at 49.8, the lowest in the survey's 74-year history, surpassing pandemic and 2008 lows. The Department of Justice also closed its investigation into Fed Chair Jerome Powell, clearing a key obstacle for Kevin Warsh's potential nomination. Global equity fund inflows hit $48.72 billion for the week, the highest in 17 months.

Tickers That Defined The Week

INTC: Up 23.64 percent on Friday alone to close at $82.57. Crushed Q1 estimates, raised Q2 guidance, and confirmed Tesla as a 14A foundry customer. The defining single-stock story of the week.

NVDA: Closed at $208.27 on Friday, up 4.32 percent. Market cap crossed $5 trillion again. The semiconductor index posted 18 straight up sessions and is now up 47 percent year to date.

AMD: Surged 13.90 percent Friday to $347.77. Up 25 percent for the week.

ARM: Up 40 percent for the week. Crowded leadership in chips reaching extended levels.

AAPL: Tim Cook stepping down as CEO effective September 1. John Ternus takes over. Stock muted on the news.

AMZN: Announced expanded Anthropic partnership worth up to $25 billion in AI infrastructure investment.

TSLA: Mixed Q1 print. EPS beat, revenue missed, capex guide jumped to $25 billion. Stock under pressure midweek.

IBM, NOW: Software wreckage. Both names lost double digits on the week despite topping estimates.

CHTR: Down roughly 24 percent Friday on a Q1 EPS miss. Lost 120,000 internet subscribers.

CAR: The Avis Budget short squeeze unwound violently. The stock fell 40 percent in two sessions after running near $713.

The Week Ahead

Next week is the most consequential stretch of earnings season. Five of the seven Magnificent Seven report: Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft. The April jobs report drops Friday. Nine central banks meet, including the Federal Reserve. Powell holds his second-to-last press conference. Mark your calendar.

Bottom Line

Records at the end of a week that featured a software collapse, oil above $105, and the lowest consumer sentiment reading on record. That is not a contradiction. It is a market being held up by a narrow group of AI-tied semiconductor names while the rest of the economy flashes warning signs. For investors near retirement, the lesson of this week is simple: the indices look strong, but leadership is thin. Five of the eleven S&P sectors closed lower on Friday even as the index hit a new high. When breadth narrows this much, single-stock and single-headline risk gets larger. Next week will tell us whether mega-cap tech earnings can broaden the rally or whether the cracks beneath the surface finally show up in the index level.

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