The Month Into May 22
Rebased to 100 a month ago. The Dow and S&P sit at the top of the range; crude and Nvidia trail.
The 30-year yield eased to 5.06% off a 5.18% week high as crude held near 96.60, carrying the Dow to a record while Nvidia slid 1.9%.
Rebased to 100 a month ago. The Dow and S&P sit at the top of the range; crude and Nvidia trail.
The 30-year Treasury yield closed at 5.06%, down from 5.18% on May 19, its highest mark since 2007. The three-session slide from 5.18 to 5.11 to 5.06 unwound part of the week's spike.
The 10-year finished at 4.56%, off 4.67% on May 19. TLT, the long-Treasury ETF, rose 0.55% on the day as the long end repriced lower.
The week's earlier surge to 5.18% had followed reporting that investors were dumping long bonds on energy-driven inflation worries and a widening federal deficit. By Friday that pressure had drained for a third straight session.
WTI settled at 96.60 on May 22, after sliding from 107.77 on May 19. Brent closed at 103.54, down from 111.28 across the same three sessions.
President Trump said on May 18 that he had called off an imminent wave of strikes against Iran to allow time for negotiations, per CNBC. Oil fell roughly 10% over the following sessions as the immediate Strait of Hormuz risk receded.
The 30-year yield topped 5.18 mid-week before fading to 5.06; WTI ranged from 104.65 down to 96.07.
The Dow ETF rose 0.60% to 506.12, the strongest of the major gauges into the long weekend. The S&P 500 ETF added 0.39% to 745.64 and the Nasdaq 100 ETF gained 0.42% to 717.54.
Small caps led with the Russell 2000 ETF up 0.93% to 285.12, the kind of breadth that tracks an easing long end. The VIX closed at 16.70, holding near the low teens-to-high-teens it has kept all week.
Health care and consumer names carried the tape. The health-care sector ETF rose 1.17% and Procter and Gamble added 0.73%, while Lockheed Martin gained 2.00% to 533.24.
Nvidia fell 1.9% to 215.33, down from an intraday high near 235 across the ten-day window. The drop ran counter to the broad advance and left the technology sector ETF up only 1.00% despite the index records.
Snowflake rose 4.02% to 172.20 in the regular session, the standout single-name gainer on the tape, ahead of a larger move tied to its after-hours report.
Fed-cut odds fell from 70% to 37% over the month; the US-Iran deal market slid from 55% to 27%; recession odds eased to 18%.
The market for a Fed cut before 2027 sat at 37% on May 22, down from 70% a month earlier. The same April-energy shock that pushed CPI to 3.8% year over year has steadily erased the easing that traders priced in spring.
The market for a 25-basis-point cut at the June 20 meeting held at 2.5%, with more than 3.6 million dollars of volume behind it. A hold through midsummer is now close to fully priced.
The market for a US-Iran nuclear deal by June 30 sat at 27% on May 22, down from 55% on April 23 even as the shooting paused. The ceasefire-through-May-24 market traded at 99.95% on nearly 1.9 million dollars of volume.
The market for a US recession in 2026 eased to 18%, from 26% a month earlier, on more than 2.2 million dollars of volume. Falling crude and a cooling long end pulled both the inflation scare and the growth scare lower at once.