As of the end of the second week of May 2018, the S&P 500 (Index: SPX) rose to reach its highest point in the second quarter of 2018, but at the index' closing value of 2,727.12 on Friday, 11 May 2018, is still 145 points below the peak value of 2,872.87 that it reached on Friday, 26 January 2018.
Week 2 of May 2018 saw investors continue to split their forward-looking focus between the current quarter of 2018-Q2 and the more distant future quarter of 2019-Q1, althouth this week, our spaghetti chart forecast chart suggests that they slightly favored 2018-Q2.
The biggest driver of stock prices during Week 2 of May 2018 was Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), which at a market cap of $934 billion on Thursday, 10 May 2018, is close to becoming the world's first trillion dollar company as the company's stock price rose to a new record level. For the S&P 500, Apple now represents 4.15% of the market capitalization of the whole index, having increased its market cap-weighted share of the index by 0.3% during the last six weeks.
Apple's new record stock price was the biggest market moving story of the week, which was otherwise characterized by stories like those listed below....
- Monday, 7 May 2018
- Tuesday, 8 May 2018
- Wednesday, 9 May 2018
- Thursday, 10 May 2018
- Friday, 11 May 2018
The Big Picture's Barry Ritholtz succinctly summarized the positives and negatives for the U.S. economy and markets during Week 2 of May 2018. He found an equal number of each, but had to reach across the Atlantic to the United Kingdom for one of the negatives (which is to say that the big picture is getting bigger!)