Stocks are starting off June with a pop. Ditto for crude oil. Gold and silver are mixed while the dollar and Treasury yields are slightly higher.
Once again, markets headed into the weekend with the promise of a Middle East deal. Once again, a deal failed to materialize – despite President Trump posting on social media late Sunday night that people should “sit back and relax, it will all work out well in the end.” Meanwhile, Iranian and US forces traded fire over the weekend, helping to push WTI and Brent crude oil futures back above $90 a barrel.
Source: Bloomberg
Lingering war worries haven’t taken steam out of an epic tech stock rally, though. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index is up more than 81% year-to-date, its strongest performance this early in a year ever. Plus, the S&P 500 Index (^SPX) surged 16% in April and May. That's the kind of two-month gain we’ve only seen four other times since 1950. Still, it’s worth noting that once you strip out AI-related stocks, the S&P has actually lost ground since the war started at the end of late February.
Meanwhile, Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) is branching out into the laptop and desktop computer world – launching a new line of products powered by its RTX Spark chip. The hardware will be aimed at high-end customers like creators, AI developers, and gamers, and tailored to run AI “agents” that perform tasks for users autonomously.
Lastly, the housing market has been mired in the mud for a while thanks to elevated home prices and relatively high mortgage rates. But that didn’t stop Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s (BRK.B) new CEO Greg Abel from getting further involved in the industry.
Berkshire announced the $6.8 billion takeover of Taylor Morrison Home Corp. (TMHC) at a 24% premium to where its shares closed on Friday. The firm already owns Clayton Homes and shares of the public homebuilder Lennar Corp. (LEN).
