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May 25, 2026

Ringside · Pre-Bell · May 25

Ringside · Pre-Bell — Monday, May 25, 2026

Ringside
Pre-BellMonday, May 25, 2026
Top Three
  1. The Iran deal announcement window.
  2. The 5-year Treasury auction at 1:00 PM Tuesday.
  3. The Salesforce Q1 print after Wednesday's close.

Indexes

US equity and bond markets are closed today for Memorial Day. CME index futures are trading on a modified holiday schedule with a 12:00 PM CT halt and a 5:00 PM CT reopen. Cash equities, Treasuries and listed options resume normal hours Tuesday. Futures are pointing sharply higher overseas on Iran-deal optimism after President Trump's Saturday Truth Social post that an agreement is "largely negotiated," with crude oil down roughly 6%.

ContractLevel% ChgNote
ES (S&P 500)7,555+1.10%Implied open above Friday's 7,473.47 cash close
NQ (Nasdaq 100)26,900+1.30%Chip-led bid tracking Asian semis
YM (Dow)51,150+1.10%+570 pts; energy laggard, industrials lead
RTY (Russell 2000)2,890+1.20%Small caps participating on the duration relief
Global Tape% ChgNote
Nikkei 225+3.02%65,254.00; first close above 65,000, intraday all-time high
Topix+2.40%3,953.89 record intraday; breadth confirms the Nikkei move
Hang Seng+1.10%Tech and shipping firms lead; Hormuz-reopen play
CSI 300+0.55%Mainland steadier than offshore; consumer names firm
Kospi+1.45%SK Hynix and Samsung lead on AI-memory pricing
DAX+1.10%Autos and industrials bid on oil relief
CAC 40+0.90%Luxury firmer with the broader risk-on backdrop
Stoxx 600+0.85%Fifth straight session of gains
FTSE 100closedUK Spring Bank Holiday; London markets shut

In the News

Trump signals Iran deal close.President Donald Trump said in a Saturday Truth Social post that "an agreement has been largely negotiated" between the United States and Iran, following a call with leaders of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan and Bahrain. Tehran has not officially confirmed the framework, and Iranian state media has contradicted parts of the readout.
Nikkei breaches 65,000.Japan's Nikkei 225 traded above 65,000 for the first time, hitting an intraday record of 65,254 and finishing up roughly 3% on the session. Semiconductor names and SoftBank Group led the rally, with the Topix index also setting a fresh intraday record on the Hormuz-reopen hopes.
Oil plunges on deal hopes.Brent crude fell about 6% to a two-week low near $95, with West Texas Intermediate down a similar amount and on track for a weekly loss exceeding 4%. The move reflects fading war-premium pricing as the Strait of Hormuz reopening framework moves closer to a final announcement.
Record Memorial Day travel.The American Automobile Association said 45 million Americans will travel at least 50 miles this weekend, including a record 39.1 million by car, despite the national average gasoline price reaching $4.56 per gallon. That is the highest Memorial Day pump price in four years, up 42% from the same holiday weekend in 2025.
OpenAI prepares IPO filing.The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI is preparing to file confidentially for an initial public offering within the next several weeks, with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley advising and a fall debut targeted. The filing would queue OpenAI behind SpaceX's June 12 Nasdaq listing in what is shaping up to be the largest IPO cycle on record.

Drivers

1. The Iran deal announcement window. President Trump's Saturday post framed an agreement as "largely negotiated" but Iran has not signed. Senior US officials told reporters over the weekend that no signature would come Sunday because "the Iranian system did not move fast enough." The asymmetric setup remains constructive: a confirmed deal reopens the Strait of Hormuz, pulls Brent through $90, and lifts risk assets broadly. A breakdown of the talks puts the war-premium bid straight back into Brent and adds back to defense names. The headline cadence between Saturday's optimism and Tuesday's 9:30 AM cash open is the dominant variable for the reopen.

2. The 5-year Treasury auction at 1:00 PM Tuesday. The bond market reopens Tuesday with three sessions of news flow to digest at once — the oil pullback, the Iran-deal optimism, and the European-rates picture. A weak 5-year auction would push the long end higher and complicate the equity reopen; a clean auction validates the duration-relief setup Friday's session pointed toward. The Wednesday 7-year follows the same script.

3. The Salesforce Q1 print after Wednesday's close. CRM arrives against two opposite cohort signals from last week: Workday's positive AI-monetization data point and Intuit's defensive layoff framing. Management commentary on Agentforce adoption, annual contract value trends, and customer-count compression will determine which signal sticks for the enterprise software group. The Marvell print the same afternoon is the AI-infrastructure parallel — together, the two reports set the tone for the cohort heading into June.

SPY daily chart
SPY daily — eight-week winning streak intact heading into the holiday-shortened week.
QQQ daily chart
QQQ daily — Nasdaq 100 ETF; futures point to a gap-up Tuesday on Asian-semi sympathy.
USO daily chart
USO daily — US Oil Fund; the war-premium unwind continues with Brent down 6% intraday.
EWJ daily chart
EWJ daily — iShares Japan ETF; the Nikkei broke 65,000 for the first time overnight.
CRM daily chart
CRM daily — Salesforce reports Wednesday after the close; the AI-software referee.

Rates, FX, Commodities

The US bond market is closed for Memorial Day; yields below are Friday's settle and are stale by definition. Currencies and commodities trade on their normal global schedules and are live as of this morning.

AssetLevelChgNote
VIX17.19-0.43Friday close; futures suggest a softer open Tuesday
2Y Treasury4.14%flatFriday settle; cash market closed today
10Y Treasury4.58%flatFriday settle; cash market closed today
30Y Treasury5.10%flatFriday settle; cash market closed today
2s10s Spread+44 bpflatCurve frozen at Friday's flatter print
DXY98.95-0.35Off Friday's six-week high as deal optimism reduces safety bid
CommodityLevel% ChgNote
WTI Crude$94.10-5.71%Two-week low; war-premium unwinds
Brent Crude$98.45-5.81%Below $100 for the first time since early May
Gold$4,562+0.85%Bid despite risk-on; safe-haven demand sticky
Nat Gas$3.04-0.33%Quiet; cooling-degree-day outlook in line

Technicals

Broad indices, frozen at Friday's close. SPX finished at 7,473.47, roughly 1.5% above the 50DMA near 7,360 and 5.3% above the 200DMA near 7,100. The next visible resistance is the 7,500 round number, with first-line support stepping down to the 7,420-7,440 prior-resistance shelf. NDX printed inside its prior range at 26,150 zone, with 26,500 the breakout level to watch on Tuesday's reopen. Futures pointing to an ES open near 7,555 would clear that 7,500 level on the gap and put 7,600 in view if breadth participates.

Rate technicals, also frozen. The 10Y at 4.58% closed at the low end of the recent 4.55-4.70% range, with a sustained break below 4.55% the trigger for the duration-friendly rotation. Tuesday's reopen will absorb three sessions of overseas news flow at once: the Iran deal headlines argue lower yields on the risk-off-to-risk-on rotation, while a weak 5-year auction Tuesday afternoon could push back. The 30Y at 5.10% sits in the upper half of its post-financial-crisis range.

Single-name technicals heading into Tuesday's open are framed by Friday's leadership. Workday (WDAY) closed at six-month highs on the largest single-day volume in over a year following its Q1 beat-and-raise. Ross Stores (ROST) printed a fresh 52-week-high close. BJ's Wholesale (BJ) extended to an all-time high. On the downside, Intuit (INTU) continues to grind below its 200DMA, and Salesforce (CRM) sits below its 50DMA into Wednesday's Q1 print.

WDAY hourly chart
WDAY hourly — Friday's beat-and-raise gap remains the most consequential single-stock technical break heading into Tuesday's reopen.

Breakouts & Breakdowns

Breakouts

Workday (WDAY) — Cleared multi-month resistance Friday on its Q1 beat-and-raise, closing at fresh six-month highs. Next visible resistance is the November high near $315; a hold above $290 keeps the breakout intact heading into Wednesday's CRM print.

Eli Lilly (LLY) — Reclaimed its 50DMA on continued retatrutide pipeline momentum and is testing the prior shelf near $1,040. A close above that level on Tuesday's reopen sets up a run at the early-May highs near $1,075.

Breakdowns

Intuit (INTU) — Sits below its 200DMA after Wednesday's restructuring shock, with the prior accumulation shelf around $310 the next visible support. A loss of that level on Tuesday opens the gap-fill toward $295.

Salesforce (CRM) — Closed below the 50DMA for the third consecutive session into Wednesday's Q1 report. A weak result puts the 200DMA near $245 in play; a clean beat-and-raise in the Workday mold could reclaim the $265 shelf on the open.

Top Movers

No US pre-market activity to report — cash equities are closed. The items below frame the names most likely to move on Tuesday's reopen as the Iran-deal headlines, the weekend oil plunge, and the overnight Asia surge are priced in at the cash open.

Gainers (Tuesday setup)

Boeing (BA), Carnival (CCL), United Airlines (UAL). The travel and transport group is the cleanest beneficiary of the oil pullback, with jet fuel making up roughly 25% of operating costs for the major US carriers. A sustained Brent print below $100 would re-engage the consumer-discretionary travel trade that had been pressured by the wartime fuel surcharges through April and May.

SK Hynix ADR, Micron (MU), Marvell (MRVL). Memory and AI-server semiconductor names are tracking the Asian semis bid that drove Nikkei past 65,000. SK Hynix and Samsung led the Kospi rally on tightening DRAM supply chatter, and MRVL reports Wednesday after the close — the AI-infrastructure read into the CRM and NVDA aftermath.

Workday (WDAY), Ross Stores (ROST), BJ's Wholesale (BJ). Friday's earnings winners carry their gap-up into Tuesday absent overnight news — WDAY's AI-monetization data point, ROST's 17% comp beat, and BJ's revenue-and-margin combination remain the strongest single-stock setups across software, off-price retail, and warehouse-channel retail respectively.

Losers (Tuesday setup)

Exxon Mobil (XOM), Chevron (CVX), Occidental (OXY). The integrated-major and US shale group faces direct pressure from the 6% Brent decline. The war-premium that supported the group through Q1 and most of Q2 is fading, and the breakeven economics of US shale production at $90 Brent are meaningfully different than at $105.

Lockheed Martin (LMT), Northrop Grumman (NOC), Raytheon (RTX). Defense primes have moved with the war-premium trade, and a deal announcement would compress the elevated multiples the group has held since the late-February operation against Iran. The pullback would not change the longer-dated procurement cycle but the near-term setup is mean-reversion lower.

Intuit (INTU), Salesforce (CRM). The software-multiple-compression debate stays live into the CRM print Wednesday. INTU adds to last week's drawdown if the AI-rev-per-seat narrative re-anchors, and CRM's guide will be the cohort tell for the entire enterprise software group.

Macro Calendar

Time (ET)ReleaseConsensusPrior
Mon, May 25Memorial Day — US markets closedn/an/a
Tue, 9:00 AMCase-Shiller Home Price Index (Mar)+3.5% YoY+3.6% YoY
Tue, 10:00 AMConference Board Consumer Confidence (May)93.092.0
Tue, 1:00 PM5-Year Treasury Auctionn/an/a
Wed, 10:00 AMNew Home Sales (Apr)695K724K
Wed, 1:00 PM7-Year Treasury Auctionn/an/a
Thu, 8:30 AMQ1 GDP (2nd estimate)-0.2%-0.3% (adv)
Thu, 8:30 AMDurable Goods Orders (Apr)+1.4%+9.2%
Thu, 8:30 AMInitial Jobless Claims228K227K
Fri, 8:30 AMCore PCE (Apr) MoM / YoY+0.2% / +2.5%+0.0% / +2.6%
Fri, 8:30 AMPersonal Income / Spending (Apr)+0.3% / +0.2%+0.5% / +0.7%

The week's data load is back-end weighted. Tuesday's consumer confidence reading is the first read on whether the elevated-oil tape and the wartime gas prices have started to bind into household sentiment. Thursday's GDP revision and durable goods come together at 8:30 AM and could move yields in opposite directions. Friday's core PCE is the headline release and the bigger driver into the June FOMC framing — an in-line +0.2% month-over-month reading keeps the no-cuts-in-2026 base case intact, while a +0.3% surprise reopens the policy-rate question.

Earnings Today

Today: US markets closed; no notable reports on the calendar.

This week's headline prints:

Tuesday: Bank of Montreal (BMO), Box (BOX), HEICO (HEI), Okta (OKTA) after the close. Box and Okta are the cohort tells for the mid-cap software and security complex into Wednesday's CRM read.

Wednesday: Salesforce (CRM), Marvell Technology (MRVL), Nutanix (NTNX), Pure Storage (PSTG), HP (HPQ) all after the close. Salesforce is the highlight — the AI-software referee between Workday's strong print and Intuit's defensive framing. Marvell ties into the AI-infrastructure read after NVDA's record Q1 reported on May 20.

Thursday: Costco Wholesale (COST) and Dell Technologies (DELL) after the close, with Dollar Tree (DLTR) and Best Buy (BBY) before the open. Costco is the warehouse-channel read after BJ's strong Friday print; Dell is the AI-server cohort name into the MRVL aftermath.

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