April 22nd Market Overview

Happy Wednesday

Solid green day across the board after Trump extended the Iran ceasefire. Nasdaq hit a fresh all-time high with semis leading the charge again.

Iran fired on three more ships in Hormuz today and blew off the Pakistan peace talks entirely. Brent crude is back over $100. Stocks are celebrating peace while oil is clearly not buying it, and when those two disagree, oil usually ends up being the one that was right.

Tesla beat on EPS, missed on revenue, stock went green anyway. The real story tonight is what Musk says on the earnings call.

Let’s dig in...

Today's Big Picture

1. Ceasefire Extended, Hormuz Still Hot

Trump pushed the Iran ceasefire out until Tehran submits a unified proposal. Iran skipped the Pakistan talks and fired on three ships in the Strait anyway. Brent back above $100 while stocks rallied. That split screen is the whole tape right now.

2. Nasdaq Prints Record As Chips Run

Nasdaq hit a fresh all-time high led by semis. XLK is on pace for 16 straight wins and SOXX notched its 10th straight record close. AMD, Cisco, Dell, Micron, and Texas Instruments all made new highs. This looks like a real breakout.

3. Trump Moves To Reclassify Weed

White House is reportedly close to moving cannabis to Schedule III. That kills the 280E tax penalty that's been strangling the industry. Canopy, Curaleaf, Trulieve, and Tilray all ran hard. Catch is Washington has to actually follow through, and this group has been burned on hope trades before.

Market Overview

Index Performance

Stock Spotlight

Boeing $BA ( ▲ 5.51% )  
posted a smaller Q1 loss than expected with revenue growth and higher jet deliveries. Cash burn got cut nearly in half from a year ago. Ortberg's turnaround is actually working.

GE Vernova $GEV ( ▲ 12.26% )  
hit a record high after pulling its $200 billion backlog target forward to 2027. Added $13 billion in the last 90 days alone. Services business is exploding.

Palantir $PLTR ( ▲ 4.48% )  
signed a $300 million deal with the USDA to modernize farm services. Another government contract stacked onto an already deep pile.

FICO $FICO ( ▼ 6.42% )  
got hit after FHFA and HUD opened mortgage underwriting to VantageScore 4.0 and the FICO 10T model. The stock is now the worst performer in the S&P 500 this year.

Big Name Updates

Tesla $TSLA ( ▲ 0.21% )  
beat on earnings (41 cents adjusted vs 37 cents expected) but missed on revenue ($22.39 billion vs $22.64 billion expected). Stock trading higher anyway. The earnings call tonight is where this one really gets decided, since Musk's comments on robotaxi timing and the xAI capital story move the stock more than the numbers.

Google $GOOGL ( ▲ 2.12% )  
rolled out new TPU chips at Cloud Next, one built for training and one for inference. Company also said AI now generates most of its new code.

Alibaba $BABA ( ▲ 0.52% )  
is reportedly in talks to invest in DeepSeek at over $20 billion, double last week's number.

Other Notable Company News

Philip Morris $PM ( ▲ 6.81% )  
climbed on IQOS strength overseas, more than offsetting a soft U.S. Zyn quarter.

Spirit Aviation $FLYYQ ( ▲ 235.0% )  
more than doubled on reports of a Trump admin bailout loan up to $500 million.

Frontier $ULCC ( ▼ 11.94% )  
dropped on the Spirit news. A Spirit rescue keeps a direct low-cost competitor alive.

Seagate $STX ( ▲ 3.56% )  
got upgraded by Barclays to overweight with a $625 target on the 40TB drive transition.

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Sector Watch

Bond Market

The 10-year Treasury yield barely moved. That rate sets mortgages, car loans, and corporate borrowing, so a quiet day there is a quiet day for the real economy.

Dollar hit its highest level since August as foreign money piled into U.S. assets. Good if you travel or buy imports. Bad for multinationals like Apple and Coke that sell overseas.

Policy Watch

Fed

Kevin Warsh's confirmation hearing went badly Tuesday. He wouldn't disagree with Trump on anything, including who won 2020, and critics are calling him a sock puppet. The Fed sets interest rates. A chair taking orders from the White House means cuts for political reasons, which usually ends in higher inflation eating your paycheck.

Mortgage Credit

Win for anyone with thin credit trying to buy a home. Fannie, Freddie, and FHA will start accepting VantageScore 4.0 and a new FICO model called 10T. Both count on-time rent payments, which old FICO mostly ignored. Getting approved just got easier for renters. FICO stock got wrecked because mortgage scoring was the business.

Iran and Oil (aka Your Gas Price)

Ceasefire extended, but Iran skipped the peace talks and fired on three ships in Hormuz. Only six ships crossed today versus the normal 50-plus. Brent back above $100, which shows up at the pump in two to four weeks.

Rep. Ritchie Torres wants the CFTC to probe $430 million in Brent futures that traded in the two minutes before Trump's ceasefire post Tuesday night. Torres: if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. White House denies anyone traded on inside info.

What to Watch

Tesla Earnings Call Tonight

Press release already out. EPS beat, revenue missed, stock higher. The call after is where Musk actually sets the narrative on robotaxi timelines, xAI capital commitments, and the Terafab chip project. That's what moves the stock into tomorrow's open.

Hormuz Transit Count

Only six ships crossed Wednesday. Real reopening pulls oil back toward the $80s. More attacks push Brent past $105.

10 AI Stocks to Lead the Next Decade

MarketBeat did an excellent job on this AI infrastructure leaders report

Thanks for reading - you are now the more informed 🙂

- John

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