SPX: S&P 500 Clocks Out with Solid 6% Rise for Best May Since 1990. Here’s What’s Next

Most of you weren’t born when this happened so that’s the first May you witness the broad American index jump over 6%.

🤑 S&P 500 Logs Best May in 25 Years

• And it’s a wrap — the S&P 500 index notched its best May since 1990 — or before most of you were born (millennials: “Wasn’t 2000 10 years ago?”). To get there, stocks had to push through a minefield of mixed earnings, tariff drama, and economic reports.
• Ultimately, the broad-based Wall Street average added 6% to its valuation to hug the flatline for the year after recovering more than 18% from the brutal selloff of early April.
• “Sell in May and go away” wasn’t the case this time. What’s more, the index is now less than 4% away from its all-time high and investors are asking: can it go for a new one?

🌱 Past Earnings and into Data

• June is looking relatively quiet on the earnings front. All major tech CEOs have already sent out their shareholder letters and had the earnings calls (of course, packed with AI lingo).
• With that not being a factor this month, economic data is set to sway markets (but expect some surprise announcements from Trump’s Truth Social handle, too).
• On Monday, the Institute for Supply Management (ISM in your economic calendar) will release its Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index for May. Analysts have penciled in a 49.2 reading (anything above 50 indicates contraction).

🤸 Weekly Events Breakdown

• On Tuesday, ADP data is coming to show how many new jobs were filled in the private sector last month. Forecasts are floating 110,000 hires, following 62,000 in April. This one is used as a proxy for the real deal — the nonfarm payrolls coming Friday.
• The NFP, for short, is expected to show the US economy added 130,000 new jobs, lower than the 177,000 hires who joined in April. Still, a good pace of economic growth, according to analysts and forecast gurus.
• And with that, if all the data cooperates and markets feel like living on the edge, we could be staring down 6,000 in no time. The S&P 500 wrapped up May at 5,911.69.