S&P 500 caps a perfect week of gains

The recovery train keeps on chugging.

Your Evening Briefing May 16, 2025 S&P 500 caps a perfect week of gains The recovery train keeps on chugging. The S&P 500 rose all five sessions this week with a 0.7% gain on Friday, while the Nasdaq 100 advanced 0.4% and the Russell 2000 outperformed with a 0.9% rise. The Financial Times said that the US and Europe have exchanged negotiating documents on trade, helping buoy hopes that the recent trend towards dialing down tariffs will continue. Friday had the best parts of Wednesday and Thursday combined: the S&P 500's advance-decline line was sharply positive, with risers outnumbering fallers by 391, and megacap tech stocks largely participated in these widespread gains. Every S&P 500 sector ETF aside from energy moved higher, with health care stocks outperforming and utilities, real estate, industrials, consumer staples, and materials all up more than 1%. Beaten-down shares of UnitedHealth bounced on Friday, with that stock and Moderna (another company that's been trending lower) topping the S&P 500's leaderboard. Outside of the benchmark index, shares of CoreWeave popped more than 20% after an SEC filing revealed Nvidia had accumulated a $900 million stake in the company as of March. Though we already knew the chip designer anchored in the recent IPO, the magnitude of its stake seemingly encouraged the traders who've been flocking to buy call options in the cloud computing company. That same filing also showed Nvidia continued to hold Applied Digital, sending those shares skyward. Charter Communications rose after announcing a deal to acquire Cox Communications, a pact which would create the largest cable and broadband provider by subscribers upon its successful completion. From mergers to break-ups: Novo Nordisk announced that it was replacing its CEO in light of the near-halving of its stock price over the past year as competition in the weight-loss drug space heats up. Take-Two fell after cutting its guidance to account for the delayed release of GTA 6. Mike Novogratz's Galaxy Digital enjoyed its debut on the Nasdaq with a solid advance. — Luke Kawa, Markets Editorr Why the two most important events of 2025 have been completely shrugged off by the stock market For AI stocks, the sum of all fears added up to zero. For tariff-rattled consumer stocks, the sum of all fears turned from something unquantifiable into something quantifiable. Read more. US funeral businesses are being squeezed by the rise of cremations Figures from the National Funeral Directors Association show the US cremation rate was projected to hit a record in 2024 — up 10x from 50 years ago. See the chart. Over 3 dozen staff and associates of Tesla's Elon Musk and fellow tech titans got federal roles that oversee their companies. Read more.  Meta is full of scams and knows it, WSJ report finds Nearly half of all reported scams on Zelle were from Meta platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Ives: iPhone production will remain in China and India, despite what Trump says Trump said he had a "little problem" with Apple CEO Tim Cook not bringing production to the US. Boeing scores a $14.5 billion order from UAE airline Etihad, adding to its massive backlog This marks the third multibillion-dollar plane order Boeing has received from a foreign airline this month. YouTube wants to monetize its growing TV dominance with AI-powered ad formats The platform is doubling down on sports and bingeable content, as well as introducing new tech that will show ads at "peak" moments in videos. Google One, the search giant's paid storage and AI service, now has 150 million subscribers That's a lot of people frustrated with notifications about how their inbox is full UnitedHealth's comeback CEO is getting $1 million a year and $60 million in stock options Huge stock grants are taking over top CEO pay packages. Was this email forwarded to you? Don't miss out on future stories — subscribe to The Wrap and get your daily dose of financial news straight to your inbox.  Craving more insights in your inbox? Subscribe to Chartr and Snacks for quality reads. We care what you think! If you have any feedback or comments, feel free to reply and let us know your thoughts!  Sherwood Media, LLC produces fresh and unique perspectives on topical financial news and is a fully owned subsidiary of Robinhood Markets, Inc., and any views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of any other Robinhood affiliate... See more Sherwood Terms and Conditions Our Editorial Standards Contact Us Advertise With Us Unsubscribe Privacy Policy