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Stocks were mixed to start a major week for earnings, with Big Tech and Big Energy set to report results and offer guidance amid a still-simmering war in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve and the rest of the Group of Seven central banks are all set to meet this week to discuss monetary policy for economies accounting for about half of global GDP.
“Despite bouts of volatility,” E*TRADE from Morgan Stanley Managing Director Chris Larkin observes, “for most of this month the showdown between geopolitical uncertainty and enthusiasm over AI-driven earnings growth has been a one-sided battle.”
Indeed, the S&P 500 was up 9.8% from the end of March through Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial average 6.2% and the Nasdaq Composite more than 15%.
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“This week could show whether the bulls’ enthusiasm has been misplaced,” Larkin notes. “If megacap tech leaders beat expectations, the market may continue to treat high oil prices and political tensions as more of a speed bump than a roadblock.”
This week’s earnings calendar includes five of the Magnificent 7 stocks, with Alphabet (GOOGL, +1.7%), Amazon.com (AMZN, -1.1%), Meta Platforms (META, +0.5%) and Microsoft (MSFT, +0.05%) set to report after the closing bell on Wednesday and Apple (AAPL, -1.3%) up after the closing bell on Thursday.
Meanwhile, five of the seven integrated oil and gas “supermajors” are also scheduled to report this week, with BP (BP, -0.6%) leading off before the opening bell on Tuesday.
TotalEnergies (TTE, -1.1%) is scheduled to report before the opening bell on Wednesday, and ConocoPhillips (COP, -0.03%) will follow on Thursday morning. Chevron (CVX, -0.2%) and Exxon Mobil (XOM, -0.5%) will report before the opening bell on Friday.
At the closing bell, the broad-based S&P 500 had added 0.1% to 7,173, another new all-time closing high, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite had risen 0.2% to 24,887, also another new all-time closing high. But the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.1% to 49,167.
It’s the end of the Fed as we know it
The confirmation process for Kevin Warsh to replace Jerome Powell as Fed chair is trending toward a sooner-rather-than-later conclusion after the Justice Department dropped an investigation into cost overruns on a project to renovate the central bank’s historic Washington, D.C., buildings.
“I am prepared to move on with the confirmation of Mr. Warsh,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) said on “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “I think he’s going to be a great Fed chair.” The Senate Banking Committee will vote on Warsh’s nomination on Wednesday, with the full body expected to confirm shortly thereafter.
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As Tillis explained, “I needed to make sure they were not using the DOJ as a weapon to threaten the independence of the Fed. So this will allow Mr. Warsh to move on with his confirmation on time.” The DOJ will only reopen its investigation if the Fed’s inspector general recommends criminal charges.
Meanwhile, Powell will convene what appears to be his final FOMC meeting as Fed chair on Tuesday and host his final press conference on Wednesday, the highlight of this week’s economic calendar.
You can track updates and commentary on the April Fed meeting on our live blog.
VZ beats, raises and rises
Verizon Communications (VZ, +1.5%) was among the top-performing Dow Jones stocks on Monday after the telecom beat first-quarter earnings expectations and raised its full-year profit guidance.
Management reported earnings of $1.28 per share (+7.6% year over year) on revenue of $34.4 billion (+2.9% YoY) vs a Wall Street forecast for EPS of $1.21 on revenue of $34.8 billion. The year-over-year EPS growth figure is Verizon’s best since 2021.
As CEO Dan Schulman noted in a pre-opening bell statement, with 55,000 net new postpaid phone subscribers, it’s the first time since 2013 that Verizon has reported positive net additions for the first quarter. Wall Street expected a loss of 88,100 subscribers.
Verizon now expects to report 2026 EPS growth of 5% to 6% and total retail postpaid phone net adds in the upper half of a 750,0000-to-1 million range, which, as management notes, is approximately two to three times what it reported for 2025.
Ackman’s Pershing Square IPO to raise $5 billion
The Pershing Square IPO will raise total funds at the low end of the range sought by founder and CEO Bill Ackman when it prices on Tuesday.
According to Bloomberg, the initial public offering (IPO) of shares in Ackman’s Pershing Square USA, which will trade on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol PSUS, will raise “about $5 billion.”
In mid-April, Ackman launched a roadshow for the IPO with the hope of raising $10 billion. A previous PSUS offering in mid-2024 was downsized from $25 billion to $2 billion.
As Bloomberg reports, the $5 billion includes a previously disclosed private placement of $2.8 billion.
