The S&P 500 closed up 0.55% yesterday on good news about U.S. GDP growth and President Trump backing down over his plan to invade Greenland. The S&P is again above 6,900 and within 1% of its all-time high. Gold hit another record yesterday, too.
But futures on the index were down 0.24% prior to the opening bell in New York and markets in Europe sold off slightly this morning after Asia closed mixed, a sign that traders are booking profits after yesterday’s rally.
On the macro front, Wall Street analysts are bullish. It’s a marked change from the fraught mood of the last few days, when investors were anticipating another transatlantic tariff war.
In fact, Trump’s tariffs are turning out to be a much smaller economic deal than “earlier worst-case fears,” JPMorgan Chase says. Companies have adjusted their pricing and supply chains, and the result is “the realized tariff rate has been much lower at ~11% (versus expectations of 15%,”), according to Dubravko Lakos-Bujas and his team. “Only 14% of S&P 500 companies are highly sensitive to tariffs.”
And it could get better if the U.S. Supreme Court rules against the president, the bank says.
“Prediction markets assign >65% odds that the Supreme Court rules against the government, and those odds have consistently been against the government, especially following the November Supreme Court oral arguments,” Lakos-Bujas told clients.
Source: Polymarket
Analysts were also cheered by a new upward revision for Q3 2025 U.S. GDP, at 4.4%.
“The 4.4% real growth rate is much higher than normal and is likely to moderate over the course of the year, but if we can stay above 3% for the entire year it could lead to double-digit returns in the stock market,” Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at Northlight Asset Management said in an email seen by Fortune.
EY-Parthenon Chief Economist Gregory Daco was singing from the same hymnbook. “Momentum was driven by resilient consumer spending, robust equipment and AI-related investment, a sizeable boost from net international trade, and a rebound in federal government outlays. The U.S. economy is neither overheating nor stalling—it is adjusting,” he said in a note.
All of that explains the calm we’re seeing in the markets today.
“For some assets, it was almost like the selloff never happened, with the VIX index of volatility (-1.26pts) back at 15.64pts, which is beneath its levels prior to Saturday’s tariff announcements,” according to Jim Reid and his team at Deutsche Bank.
Here’s a snapshot of the markets ahead of the opening bell in New York this morning:
S&P 500 futures were down 0.24% this morning. The last session closed up 0.55%.
STOXX Europe 600 was down 0.22% in early trading.
The U.K.’s FTSE 100 was down 0.11% in early trading.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 0.29%.
China’s CSI 300 was down 0.55%.
The South Korea KOSPI was up 0.76%.
India’s NIFTY 50 was down 0.95%.
Bitcoin was flat at $89.9K.
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