The S&P 500 (^GSPC) just had its best May in 35 years as President Trump's rollback of tariffs boosted stocks.
In May, the S&P 500 rose more than 6%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) added 4%. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) led the gains, rising nearly 10%.
The May jobs report will headline the first week of June. Fresh readings on job openings and wage data, as well as manufacturing and services activity, will also be in focus for investors.
In corporate news, quarterly results from CrowdStrike (CRWD), Broadcom (AVGO), DocuSign (DOCU), and Lululemon (LULU) will lead an otherwise subdued slate of earnings on the docket.
A US trade court decision that put at least a temporary pause on many of President Trump's wide-ranging tariffs late Wednesday night isn't cooling Wall Street's fears over policy uncertainty. A day later, an appeals court reinstated the tariffs.
The back-and-forth illustrates why investors remain concerned about trade policy uncertainty.
“Investors were hoping that tariff negotiations would largely be ironed out in the next couple of months, leaving the Administration free to focus far more on growth-positive policy, including deregulation,” Barclays global chairman of research Ajay Rajadhyaksha wrote prior to the appeals court decision. “At least optically, that entire process is now pushed back a few months.”
And perhaps most importantly, it hasn't stopped the administration from threatening more tariffs. Stocks fell on Friday as President Trump posted on Truth Social that China has “TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US.”
Later in the afternoon on Friday, Bloomberg reported the US is planning wider China tech sanctions, sending stocks lower.
“As we've seen this morning with the Truth Social post that came out, tariffs aren't completely out of the headlines yet,” Ritholtz Wealth Management chief market strategist Callie Cox told Yahoo Finance Friday morning. “I think heading into this summer, especially after such a strong bounce [higher in the market], it makes a lot of sense to be cautious.”
Signs of an economic slowdown have yet to emerge in labor market data. Economists expect that trend to continue with the release of the May jobs report on Friday.
The report is expected to show 130,000 nonfarm payroll jobs were added to the US economy last month while unemployment held steady at 4.2%, according to data from Bloomberg. In April, the US economy added 177,000 jobs while the unemployment rate rose to 4.2%.
