After Hours % Advancers

After Hours % Decliners

Closing Volume

- NYSE volume 35% above its one-month average

- NASDAQ volume 1% below its one-month average

- VIX index: up 0.35% to 17.44

Breadth

S&P 500 Sectors

% Movers

Nasdaq 100 Heat Map

Closing S&P 500 Heat Map

Thanks for reading my Diary.

I recognize, being wrong-footed, that I am not coming up with much in the way of value-added (long) ideas.

This will change, hopefully sooner than later.

Enjoy the evening.

Be safe.

Position: None

"If we look at the top 10 performing NDX stocks in 1999, they were up an average of 559%. The top 10 in the year leading up to 3/24/00 were up an average of 622%. The top 10 NDX names over the last year are up an average of 784%, beating both the dot-com periods"

- BTIG's Jonathan Krinsky 

Wolf Street howls about the housing market. 

Position: None

A look at earnings-reporting stocks at 1 p.m. that gapped up/down this morning:

Some of the after-hours earnings reports on Wednesday

At my board meeting.

Back at 2 p.m.

- NYSE volume 45% above its one-month average;

- Nasdaq volume 8% below its one-month average;

- VIX index: down 2.30% to 16.98

Positions: None.

I want to repeat myself at the beginning of the day...

The business media is filled with confident "talking heads" who rarely admit being wrong and seem uber confident in all their investment and trading ideas.

By contrast, I recognize my failings. I recognize that I am often wrong and, as a result, I am always in doubt. 

So I won't pretend or put lipstick on the pig.   

When I am offsides (with regard to the markets), as I have been recent recently, I become less active - and you can see that in my reduced trading/investing activity over the last few weeks.

During these times I try to keep my portfolio's value intact (and near the highs) and I tend to retreat to doing even more research.

And that is what I am doing now.

Positions: None.

From Peter Boockvar:

This could be it/In awe/Steven Roth speaks out/Other earnings notables

This could be it and the Strait fully reopens without fear and threat. Unfortunately though the IRGC will still be in power and we’ll see what they agree to with regards to their nuclear enrichment but the economic and political realities left us with no choice to end this as I think the Administration has been trying to do so since early April. It seemed like China joined us in getting to this point finally as their Foreign Minister in reports directly told the Iranians that “the international community shares a common concern for the restoration of normal and safe passage of the Strait” and essentially told them enough is enough.

Stocks have been rallying for 5 weeks in anticipation of a deal, of course too juiced by the AI trade. Bonds are seeing a nice rally and maybe in the short term we can take away the pain point of the long term rate rise. With respect to oil prices, it all comes down to where prices settle out at as they were always going to fall when the war was over but to where sustainably was the question. I encourage more looking at prices further out on the futures curve in the coming weeks, months.

It’s hard not to be in awe of the strength, rapidity and vertical nature of the semiconductor rally. With where it is expected to open, Micron will be 139% above its 200 day moving average. AMD will be 97% above its 200 day. For perspective, the SOX index peaked at 114% above its 200 day moving average in March 2000. I’m in no way saying this ends the same way anytime soon and am instead just providing perspective on how intense the move has been higher.

While business is obviously robust and the data center buildout is massive, I do have to wonder though how much of the order spurt for semis recently is due to double and triple ordering, especially with key suppliers in Taiwan and South Korea subject to energy and helium shortages (hopefully soon no more). All of the PMI’s told us they are seeing companies building ‘safety stocks’ ahead of expected price increases and/or shortages.

Micron as of yesterday’s stock and % above its 200 day MA

Vornado Realty was the most interesting conference call yesterday and not because of what was said on its rental trends (NYC very strong by the way for Class A buildings) but because of CEO Steven Roth’s pushback against the NYC Mayor, joining Ken Griffen as he is their partner in developing the Citadel building at 350 Park Ave. He said of note:

“My wife of 56 years and I live and work in Manhattan. We follow the rules and we pay our fair share. Vornado will pay $560 million in real estate taxes this year, and I’m pretty sure that’s in the top three. And that doesn’t begin to count the personal income taxes that I and our Vornado population paid to the city and state of New York. We work our asses off and we are not boastful. We are very proud of our lifetime achievements.”

“We are the company that is investing billions to transform the Penn district. New York is a union town and we are a union shop employing thousands of hardworking New Yorkers in our buildings and on our construction sites. The ugly, unnecessary video spun is personal to Ken and sort of personal to me too. You see Vornado and I are the developers of both 220 Central Park South residential building and the 350 Park Avenue Citadel Tower. We are all shocked that our young mayor would pull this stunt in front of Ken’s home and single them with ridicule. This was both irresponsible and dangerous.”

“I must say that I consider the phrase tax the rich, but spit out with anger and contempt by politicians both here and across the country to be just as hateful as some disgusting racial slurs and even the phrase from the river to the sea. What these poll pauls seem to be saying is that the rich are evil or the enemy or the targets or maybe even just suckers. But the rich whom the politicians are targeting started with nothing, are the epitome of the American Dream. They are our largest employers and largest philanthropists. And it is the 1% that paid 50% of New York’s income taxes. They are at the top of the great American Economic pyramid for a reason. They should be praised and thanked. Ken, our partner and friend is the best of the best.” Well said Steve.

Moving on to more earnings calls and the macro clues we can glean.

Live entertainment remains robust and this from Live Nation, a stock we still own:

“We have already booked over 85% of our large venue shows for the year, with show counts up y/o/y across stadiums, arenas, and amphitheaters. Our momentum is clear: we have sold over 107 million tickets to date - an 11% increase - and Venue Nation is on track to grow fan attendance at our owned and operated venues by double digits.”

Helping too, “there are more bands on the road on a global basis. So the pie is growing...and they’ll be filling all levels from the club up to the stadium, which we’re seeing this year.

As to the demand side, “we see no slowdown in any genre, no demographic. We see across the board, whether it’s a club show, whether it’s an amphitheater in Indianapolis or an expensive stadium show in New York, we’ve seen no demand pull back anywhere. Same thing in the rest of the world. Argentina to Milan to Singapore, don’t see any pullback. Consumers still consider that live show very, very important in their social calendar for the year. Whether they’re going to one, two, or three shows a year, it’s paramount that they get to that show. So we’ve seen no pullback. Broad, strong demand across the board on all genres, all theater sizes.”

More on live entertainment, Sphere Entertainment has had quite a run higher over the past year and they said this of note:

“Calendar 2026 marks our third full year of operation in the market with our business on track for substantial growth. This is led by The Wizard of Oz at Sphere, which continues to perform well.”

“In addition to higher revenues from the Sphere Experience, we also saw revenue growth in brand events, concert residencies and sponsorship and suite license fees.”

From Paypal and whose stock fell 8% yesterday because of light guidance:

“Compared to the fourth quarter, we saw a slight improvement in the US with softer performance continuing in Europe. Pay with Venmo and buy now/pay later continue to outpace the market, taking share from other payment methods and growing 34% and 23% respectively.”

Dupont popped 8% yesterday and they said this:

“Organic sales growth was led by strength in healthcare and aerospace, partially offset by continued softness in construction markets and logistics disruptions due to the conflict in the Middle East. These disruptions primarily impacted sales in our water business in the quarter.”

Cummins is in the right spot, offsetting weakness elsewhere and they said this:

“Growth was driven primarily by higher demand and power generation markets, particularly from data centers. This increase was partially offset by weaker North America heavy and medium duty truck demand, with unit volumes down 20% from a year ago.”

From Ball Corp, the aluminum packaging company and whose stock fell 6% yesterday:

“Global volumes were up nearly 1% y/o/y, reflecting slightly stronger than expected volumes in North America and in line performance in South America, partially offset by volumes in EMEA.”

As to the jump in aluminum prices, “The way that our contracts work generally is we pass on the cost of aluminum to our customers on an immediate basis and then they choose how they will manage that cost impact.”

From Upstart, the online consumer lender and down pre-market as while originations and revenues rose sharply, profitability fell:

“At the top of the funnel, we typically see consumer demand for personal loans soften in Q1 as tax refunds reduce borrowing needs. This soft demand typically translates into lower conversion and a modest step down in contribution margin in Q1 versus Q4.”

“We see the consumer, the American consumer as largely stable over the period. In fact, we’ve seen the consumer largely stable really since late last year...Certainly an improving consumer could be a tailwind, but a stable consumer is a good one from our perspective, and that’s what we’ve seen.”

Positions: None.

From Peter Boockvar:

Job growth rebounds but...

ADP said private sector job growth in April was 109k, just below the estimate of 120k but up from 61k in March. Small businesses improved their pace of hirings for a third month, newly employing 65k but companies with 50-499 employees saw little hiring, up by 2k and large companies added 42k people.

Again, education/health services did most of the hiring, adding 61k. That was followed by trade/transportation/utilities which hired 25k. Job gains were also seen in financial services, information and leisure/hospitality. Jobs were lost in professional/business services and ‘other services.’

On the goods side, manufacturing added 2k and construction hired a net 10k, likely helped by data center construction. Natural resources/mining added 3k.

Wage growth was still pretty good with ‘job stayers’ seeing pay up 4.4% y/o/y vs 4.5% in the month before. For ‘job changers’, wages grew by 6.6% y/o/y, the same pace seen in March.

Bottom line, on the surface we’re seeing a welcome rebound in hiring from small companies in particular but there is a big caveat. I just heard Neela Richardson, the chief economist at ADP say on CNBC that many of the small business jobs are part time and lower paying.

I forget to mention in my earlier note that mortgage applications fell 4.4% w/o/w as the average 30 yr rate rose 8 bps to 6.45%, a 4 week high. In particular, purchases fell by 3.7% and refi’s were lower by 5%.

Positions: None.

I have moved to between M and L in my  (GRNY)  short ($27.02).

Positions: Short GRNY M/L

Back in the office.

Positions: None.

Upside:

-EVC +77% (earnings, color)

-AVTX +47% (Abdakibart meets Phase 2 LOTUS primary endpoint; prices 19.7M shares at $17.75/shr)

-HUT +30% (commercializes First Phase of 1 GW Beacon Point AI Data Center Campus with 15-Year, 352 MW IT Lease with Base-Term Contract Value of $9.8B)

-BLMN +20% (earnings, guidance)

-AMD +17% (earnings, guidance)

-GLW +17% (NVIDIA and Corning announced a multiyear commercial and technology partnership)

-GEO +15% (earnings, guidance)

-KMT +14% (earnings, guidance)

-SRTA +14% (earnings, guidance)

-SMCI +13% (earnings, guidance)

-TBLA +12% (earnings, guidance)

-ACLS +11% (momentum)

-ARM +11% (strength following AMD earnings)

-OSCR +11% (earnings, guidance)

-HNGE +8.8% (earnings, guidance)

-CORZ +7.4% (plans Muskogee campus expansion to 1.5 GW gross power)

-RCL +7.2% (cruise operators rise on falling oil prices)

-UBER +6.9% (earnings, guidance)

-NYT +6.5% (earnings, guidance)

-CCL +6.0% (cruise operators rise on falling oil prices)

-JBL +5.9% (momentum)

-CVS +5.4% (earnings, guidance)

-NVAX +4.8% (earnings, color)

-NCLH +4.7% (cruise operators rise on falling oil prices)

-DIS +4.5% (earnings, guidance)

-MU +4.4% (strength following AMD earnings)

-LYFT +3.6% (higher in sympathy with UBER)

-ELAN +3.3% (earnings, guidance)

-PODD +3.3% (earnings, guidance)

Downside:

-ATEC -20% (earnings, guidance)

-HLLY -18% (earnings, guidance)

-AZTA -15% (earnings, guidance)

-LUCK -12% (earnings, guidance)

-FRSH -11% (earnings, guidance)

-NICE -11% (earnings, guidance)

-PARR -10% (earnings)

-UPST -9.0% (earnings, guidance)

-EQNR -8.6% (earnings, guidance)

-CRTO -7.8% (earnings, guidance)

-KD -6.6% (earnings, guidance)

-TDC -5.8% (hearing UBS cuts target price)

-TEN -5.8% (downside momentum)

-COR -5.2% (earnings, guidance)

-WOLF -5.2% (earnings, guidance)

-STNG -4.9% (earnings)

-LCID -4.8% (earnings)

-BRBR -3.7% (multiple broker downgrades following earnings)

-LUMN -2.8% (earnings, guidance)

Positions: None.

Positions: None

Positions: None.

Treasury Auctions, Actions

11 a.m.: Treasury buyback announcement (liq support);

11:30 a.m.: Treasury hosts a $69B 17-Week Bill Auction;

2 p.m.: Treasury buyback (liq support)

Fed Speakers:

9:30 a.m.: Fed Bank of St. Louis President Musalem (Non-Voter) participates in moderated discussion on the U.S. economy and monetary policy before the Mississippi Bankers Association 2026 Annual Convention, Fairhope, AL (Livestream available. No text anticipated);

1:00 p.m.: Fed Bank of Chicago President Goolsbee (Non-Voter) participates on panel before the Milken Institute Global Conference 2026, Los Angeles, CA (Embargoed text TBD. Livestream available)

Economic Calendar:

Positions: None.

This was not unexpected:

Marijuana Opponents File Lawsuit To Block Trump Administration's Federal Rescheduling Move - Marijuana Moment

Position: None

Inflation, Communication, and Noise - by Quoth the Raven

Position: None

Flipping the Script - Doomberg

Position: None

I have a breakfast meeting at 7:30 a.m. and a Board meeting between noon and 2 p.m. today.

With the benefit of hindsight it was correct to buy at the sound of cannons.

Is it soon time to sell/short at the sound of trumpets?

Adding slowly to index shorts (605 AM):

*  (SPY)  $729.42

*  (QQQ)  $690.79

Position: Short SPY (S), QQQ (S)

Axios reports that the U.S. and Iran are working on a one-page agreement to end the war.

Position: None

The S&P Short Range Oscillator shifted into overbought territory at 1.51% vs. -0.31%.

Position: Short SPY (S), QQQ (S)