Indexes

The week closed with the Dow setting a fresh record and the S&P 500 marking its eighth straight winning week, the longest such streak since late 2023. Breadth was broadly positive across all four major indexes with the Russell leading on the rate-relief bid. Health Care and Technology each gained roughly 1% as group leaders, while Energy was the lone meaningful drag as oil pulled back on news that a Qatari mediation team had arrived in Tehran to help broker a US-Iran ceasefire.

SPY — S&P 500 ETF, daily. Eighth winning week confirmed at the bell.

Sector Heat Map

Rotation tilted toward growth-and-defense leadership as Workday's after-hours surge from Thursday rippled through the software group and Eli Lilly's obesity-pipeline momentum kept Health Care firm. Energy lagged as Brent's intraday spike on Iran headlines failed to hold the close.

Ten of eleven S&P sectors finished green for the session, with Energy the lone laggard. The leadership pattern reads as a return to the growth-plus-defense barbell that has carried the eight-week rally, with cyclicals participating modestly and the most rate-sensitive groups (Real Estate, regional banks) benefiting from the 10Y yield easing back to 4.58%.

In the News

Drivers

1. Weekend Iran headlines into Tuesday's open. The Qatari mediation effort has a multi-day window to produce a substantive announcement, and Tehran's response to the proposed framework will shape Tuesday's open more than any single domestic data point. The asymmetric setup favors a constructive headline driving Energy lower and risk-assets higher; a breakdown of talks would re-engage the war-premium bid and put Brent back through $110. Defense names (LMT, NOC, RTX) and the integrated majors (XOM, CVX) carry weekend tape risk on every Qatari, Iranian or White House headline.

2. The Salesforce print as the AI-software referee. Wednesday afternoon's CRM Q1 will arrive against the backdrop of two opposite cohort signals this week: Workday's positive AI-monetization data point and Intuit's defensive restructuring framing. Salesforce management commentary on Agentforce adoption, ACV trends and customer-count compression will determine which signal the institutional desks treat as the lasting one. A clean WDAY-style narrative pressures the bear case; an INTU-style cautious tone validates the multiple-compression thesis for the entire group.

3. Friday's PCE report and the rate trajectory. April PCE on Friday is the next macro test, with consensus looking for core PCE at +0.2% month-over-month and +2.5% year-over-year. A meaningful upside surprise puts the 10Y back through 4.70% and re-engages the duration-pain trade that has been on pause for three sessions; an in-line print extends the rate-relief bid that drove Friday's small-cap leadership. The Tuesday consumer confidence and Wednesday durable goods reports are also worth watching for evidence of whether the elevated-oil tape is binding into household spending decisions.

WDAY — Workday, daily (+10.8% on Q1 beat-and-raise)

ROST — Ross Stores, daily (+6.95%, fresh 52-week high)

BJ — BJ's Wholesale, daily (+8% on Q1 revenue beat)

DIA — Dow Jones ETF, daily (fresh record close)

Rates, FX and Volatility

Technicals

SPX added 0.37% to 7,473.47, clearing the prior week's 7,440 resistance shelf and now setting up the round-number 7,500 level as the next visible target. The index is roughly 1.5% above the 50DMA (~7,360) and 5.3% above the 200DMA (~7,100), with first-line support stepping down to the 7,420-7,440 prior-resistance zone. NDX printed inside its prior range with the 26,150 zone holding as new support; a confirmed close above 26,500 would extend the breakout. The 10Y at 4.58% closed at the low end of the recent 4.55-4.70 range, and a sustained break below 4.55 would re-engage the duration-friendly rotation that had been compressed by the Iran-headline yield back-up earlier in the week.

Breakouts. Workday (WDAY) gapped through multi-month resistance on its Q1 beat-and-raise, closing at fresh six-month highs on the largest single-day volume in over a year. Ross Stores (ROST) printed a clean 52-week-high close on the Q1 beat-and-raise, confirming the off-price thematic. BJ's Wholesale (BJ) extended its breakout to a fresh all-time high on the revenue surprise.

Breakdowns. Intuit (INTU) continued to grind below its 200DMA following Wednesday's layoff/restructuring shock, with the prior accumulation shelf around $310 now the next visible support. Salesforce (CRM) closed below the 50DMA for the third straight session into next week's Q1 print, keeping the software-multiple-compression debate live.

WDAY — Workday, hourly intraday. The Q1 beat-and-raise gap-up was the most consequential single-stock technical break of the session.

Top Movers

Gainers

Workday (WDAY) +10.8%. Surged on a Q1 fiscal-2027 beat-and-raise that featured the strongest AI-monetization data point yet from a large-cap software vendor. Non-GAAP EPS of $2.66 cleared the $2.51 consensus and subscription revenue of $2.35 billion rose 14.3% year over year. Management raised the fiscal-2027 non-GAAP operating margin guide to 30.5% and disclosed that annualized revenue from agentic AI solutions is approaching $500 million, with the number of customers using at least one AI agent more than doubling quarter over quarter. The result is a direct positive signal for the AI-software group (ORCL, NOW, ADP) heading into next week's Salesforce print and an early rebuttal to the rev-per-seat-compression thesis that hit Intuit on Wednesday.

Ross Stores (ROST) +6.95%. Climbed to a fresh 52-week high after reporting Q1 EPS of $2.02 against a $1.68 consensus and comparable store sales up 17%. Total sales grew 21% to $6 billion, operating margin expanded 120 basis points to 13.4%, and management raised the full-year guide. The result confirms the off-price thesis already validated by TJX on Tuesday and pressures the mass channel further. Wells Fargo, Truist and UBS all raised price targets Friday morning, with Truist moving to $290 as the high call on the Street.

BJ's Wholesale (BJ) +8.0%. Beat on both lines for fiscal Q1 with revenue of $5.66 billion topping the $5.44 billion consensus and adjusted EPS of $1.10 clearing $1.04. Comparable club sales grew 6.3%, membership fee income rose 9.9% to $132.4 million, and digitally enabled comp growth of 28% reinforced the membership-driven story. The result reinforces the value-channel barbell that has separated retail winners from the mass-grocery cohort and supports the COST/PSMT read-through into next month's prints.

Tesla (TSLA) +3.05%. Climbed on the launch of Full Self-Driving subscriptions in Germany and Sweden alongside continued retail enthusiasm ahead of the June 12 SpaceX IPO. The European FSD rollout marks the first material expansion outside North America since regulatory approval in late 2025. The SpaceX listing has emerged as a sentiment driver for the entire Musk-complex, with the $1.75 trillion projected valuation now larger than Tesla's own $1.3 trillion market capitalization.

Losers

Intuit (INTU) -2.5%. Extended Wednesday's layoff-driven drawdown with a third straight session of cohort-led selling. The stock is now down more than 40% year to date as investors continue to digest the 17% workforce reduction and the implied AI-compression narrative for the productivity-SaaS group. The technical damage is meaningful and a recovery back through the 200DMA will require multiple sessions of constructive base-building rather than a single bounce.

Exxon Mobil (XOM) -1.1%. Sold off with the broader integrated-major group as WTI gave back its early Iran-headline pop and the Energy sector finished as the only red sector. The Qatar-mediation news reframed the war-premium trade lower into the long weekend, though the Brent-WTI spread suggests the underlying Hormuz uncertainty is intact. The setup is binary on any weekend headline cadence around the Tehran talks.

Deckers Outdoor (DECK) -0.9%. Gave back a small piece of Thursday's 4.5% post-earnings rally as investors took profits into the long weekend. The Q4 beat (EPS $0.96 vs $0.83 estimate, revenue $1.12 billion vs $1.09 billion) and the Hoka segment's 14.5% revenue growth remain intact, and the pullback reads as positioning rather than fundamental.

Key Macro Data Today

The Friday data dump was light by design ahead of the holiday weekend. The Michigan final print confirmed the preliminary read showing consumer sentiment depressed but stable, with year-ahead inflation expectations elevated at 6.7%. The bigger data tests come next week with consumer confidence Tuesday, durable goods Wednesday, and the April PCE report Friday.

Notable Earnings This Session

Pre-Open

BJ's Wholesale (BJ) was the consequential print of the morning, with the revenue beat detailed above driving an 8% gap-up at the open and confirming the membership-warehouse cohort thesis. Buckle (BKE) also reported with a modest beat. The post-earnings reads from Thursday afternoon — Workday (WDAY) +10.8%, Ross Stores (ROST) +6.95% and Deckers (DECK) +4.5% on Thursday alone — were the dominant single-stock contributors to the Friday open.

Post-Close

No major reports after Friday's bell. The earnings calendar is light into Memorial Day, with the next consequential prints arriving Tuesday from Bank of Montreal and Box (BOX). The full software cohort focus then shifts to Salesforce (CRM) on Wednesday afternoon, the print that ties together the WDAY-positive and INTU-negative AI narratives of the past 72 hours.

What Drove the Tape

Three threads framed the session. The Workday beat-and-raise was the headline single-stock event, with the company's disclosure that agentic-AI revenue is approaching $500 million annualized providing the first concrete monetization data point from a large-cap software vendor and rebutting the Intuit-driven rev-per-seat-compression worry that had pressured the group earlier in the week. The Qatar mediation team arriving in Tehran lifted broader risk sentiment, pulling the 10Y yield down nine basis points to 4.58% and easing financial conditions into the long weekend even as Brent crude held firmer than WTI on residual Hormuz uncertainty. The third thread was the breadth picture, with ten of eleven S&P sectors finishing green and the Russell 2000 leading the four major indexes — a rotation profile that suggests the eight-week rally has broadened beyond the megacap-tech complex.