S&P 500 Ends Strong Week With Bear Market in Sight
Wall Street’s hopes that Donald Trump’s tariff war is cooling drove stocks to their second-best week in 2025, with the S&P 500 rising for a fifth straight session despite a soft reading on consumer sentiment.
Equities extended gains as the Financial Times reported the US and the European Union broke an impasse to enable tariff talks, bolstering optimism about negotiations with America’s top trade partners. That’s after a recent truce with China fueled the risk-on tone that drove the stock benchmark to the brink of a bull market, surging almost 20% from its April low.
The renewed optimism sent the S&P 500 up over 5% since last Friday. Action in the bond market was muted, though Treasuries saw a third straight weekly drop — the longest slide this year. The dollar rose despite data showing sentiment among options traders is the most negative in five years.
President Trump’s attempts to shake up global trade left US equities out of favor earlier this year. But there are signs that investors are returning. Fund managers added about $20 billion to American stock funds in the past week, the first inflow to the region in more than a month, according to EPFR Global data cited by Bank of America Corp.
“The fear of bad tariff outcomes appears to be fading quickly,” said Louis Navellier, chief investment officer at Navellier & Associates. “Overall, a solid week, and momentum remains to the upside.”
Trump said he would set tariff rates for US trading partners “over the next two to three weeks,” asserting there are “150 countries that want to make a deal.” While investors have little clarity on how negotiations will unfold, the absence of bad news on the trade front helped firm market sentiment.
Traders were able to look past data showing US consumer sentiment unexpectedly fell and inflation expectations climbed to multi-decade highs. Given the recent de-escalation of trade tensions with China, Capital Economics’ Alexandra Brown expects a marked rebound in sentiment next month.
The S&P 500 climbed 0.7%. The Nasdaq 100 added 0.4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.8%.
The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced one basis point to 4.44%. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.2%. Oil gained after Iran’s foreign minister downplayed prospects for a breakthrough in nuclear talks with the US.
Source : Bloomberg
