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Laurie’s Abbreviation Index:

** ‘div’ – dividend 

** ‘m/m’ – month over month

** ‘y/y’ – year over year

** ‘Inven’ – inventories

** ‘mfg’ – manufacturing 

** +/- – plus or minus, positive or negative

** Underlined text – higher volume premarket

** ‘d’ – day

** ‘Y’ – year

**govt – government 

Color Key: Positive – Neutral – Negative
Global Markets:  USA, Europe, Japan, China, Hong Kong – neutral  global set-up

·         Commodities:  Gold, Silver, Oil, natgas, AGGS, Industrial Metals, Bitcoin

·         Yields: 30Y Bond -.35%  Currencies:  USA$+.44% CAD -.58% YEN-.88%  BTC/USD+3.5%  Vix: 22.7

·         Stocks: FTNT-7.5%, SHOP-8.5%, TAP-2.5%, PLNT-2.8%, ARGX-9.6%, ARM-8%, CVNA+5.7%, EPAM+9.9%, BUD+1.4% EPS
News:  USA: WH to announce a trade deal with UK; USA may change chip export rules; Trump speaking at 10ET;  UE claims 830ET  UK: 25bps rate cut
Overview: USA indices bounced with the latest news/rumors in the ongoing tariff soap opera. A UK trade deal will be announced today with whom there is $375B in total trade with USA having a positive goods trade balance and a negative services balance. IMO friendly country with insignificant trade imbalance but market reacts to anything remotely positive. There are also rumours of a change to the semi export restrictions which could be devastating to the USA semi industry. NVDA and AMD are bouncing premarket but unclear to me whether the recent executive order will be rescinded and how the USA will resolve the conflict between preventing China from acquiring chips and negatively impacting the financials of the USA semi companies. Potential next tariff bomb will be pharma, which is on deck. Today Trump is speaking at 10ET to make some announcement. If it’s the UK trade deal, IMO it’s a meaningless announcement and an acknowledgement that there is insufficient progress with other friendly countries where there is a real trade imbalance and whether the market is willing to embrace or sell the news. Indices are at the top of the daily expected move so potential for breakout above or alternatively sell down. Mag7 all positive led by GOOGL which dumped Wed on comments from AAPL that may be looking at alternate AI providers and NVDA which is up on potential for WH to flip flop on the export restrictions. Bitcoin continues to surge despite the US$ higher lifting the usual suspects like MSTR, MARA, COIN. Earnings: + APP, IONQ – FTNT, SHOP, ARM

·         Simple bull bear levels: SPY 560, QQQ 480

·         SPY 566.6,  Resistance  568 570,  Support 565 564 560,  QQQ 489.7, Resistance 490 495,   Support 485 483 480

·         Daily Expected Move SPX(5690-5572), SPY(567-555), QQQ(489-478), IWM(200-195)

Stocks to watch APP, GOOGL, NVDA, SMH, SHOP, FTNT, ARM, PLNT Speculative  IONQ,  OSCR, MSTR
Pre-800ET
Indices ETHE, IBIT, UNG, USO, QTUM, SMH, FXI, ARKG, ARKK, KWEB, QQQ, IGV, XLK, GLD, XLV, TLT

S&P500  TPR, INTC, GOOGL, MU, NDAQ, AVGO, NKE, META, PLTR, BX, CCL, AMD, FTNT, BMY

Other APP, IONQ, INOD, BTDR, MARA, MSTR, AFRM, OSCR, COIN, OKLO, HOOD, RKLB, SMR, SHOP, ARM, HIMS, NVO, BEKE, NTDOY

Trade Idea: GOOGL

GOOGL fell 8% Wed after comments by AAPL that search volume had dropped as users moved to Chatgpt and Perplexity. GOOGL has not reported a drop in commercial searches. If one thinks that the  sell down is overdone, can consider a long trade in GOOGL via a short put spread or a long call vertical/diagonal. Option positioning indicates support at 150 and resistance at 160. GOOGL is hosting an IOS conference May20 which is a potential positive catalyst. Longer term GOOGL faces govt antitrust actions and tougher compares which suggests that this would be a shorter term trade.