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Sell me maybe

Stocks are sinking today — it’s surely the GDP numbers and not the fact that it’s the last day of April

It’s definitely not investors getting a jump start on “sell in May and go away.” Right?

4/30/25 12:01PM

After weeks of good news being bad and bad news being good for the stock market, this morning appears to be one of those rare days when market participants of all levels of sophistication get to say the rarest of phrases: I know why the market is doing what it’s doing.

Indeed, the cause of today’s market malaise, with the SPDR S&P 500 Trust Index still in the red despite staging a mini midmorning rally, seems easy to diagnose. As my colleague Luke Kawa put it:

“US stocks are sliding in early trading after the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that the advance estimate of first-quarter GDP showed a 0.3% contraction in the economy compared to Q4.”

But, to quote Michael Scott, “I’m not super-stitious but I am a little stitious.” And today’s downturn in US stock markets just happens to come on the last trading day of April, giving ammunition to the small group of investors who espouse the old stock market adage that you should “sell in May and go away.”

As someone who typically puts as much faith in stock market voodoo as I put in my own ability to time the market (none), I’m hesitant to write about seasonal patterns. Though it might only be a very distant cousin of technical strategies like the “Inverse Head and Shoulders Pattern,” the “Broadening Bottom,” or the “Quasimodo Pattern,” the notion that what month it is matters is hard to swallow. But swallow it we must, because there is a substantial body of evidence confirming the fact that stock market returns tend to lag over May and the summer period that follows.

Per Fidelity’s research (emphasis ours):

“Since 1990, the S&P 500 has gained an average of about 2% from May through October. That compares with a roughly 7% average gain from November through April.”

It’s hard to tell at a glance, but even on a shorter, more modern time horizon, the monthly returns for the six-month period from the start of November to the end of April have averaged around 1%, while the May to October six-month swing has produced roughly half the returns, at 0.5%.

So, yeah, today’s downturn is almost certainly just the GDP numbers, tariff jitters, and the latest saga in the AI trade. But maybe — just maybe — there are a few folks out there hitting the sell button who are heading to a beach for the next six months. If that’s you, please get in touch.

Tasha Matsumoto, Nate Becker

13m

Stocks jump as Trump walks back European tariff threats

All sector ETFs traded higher in the broad-based rally.

Benny, the mascot for the Chicago Bulls, performs during a break between the Bulls and the New Orleans Pelicans at the United Center on January 14, 2017 in Chicago, Illinois.

Matt Phillips4h

Intel soars amid retail engagement, analyst chatter

Intel ripped toward a new 52-week high Wednesday, amid a flurry of activity in the options market and a couple of positive analyst assessments ahead of its earnings report due tomorrow.

Shortly after 11 a.m. ET, call options activity was roughly equivalent to the full-day average over the past 10 sessions. Bets on stock swings using call options have become a highly popular retail trade, suggesting that retail investors are getting interested in the shares ahead of the report from the partially nationalized American chip icon.

(That interpretation is buttressed by what we’re seeing on social sentiment-monitoring sites like SwaggyStocks, which at about 11:30 a.m. listed Intel as the fifth-most-mentioned stock on Reddit’s r/WallStreetBets forum over the past 24 hours.)

Wall Street analysts are also chattering about the stock, with RBC and Bernstein Research both writing about it in the last 24 hours.

RBC — which has a “sector perform” (or neutral) rating on Intel — said it expects a “slight beat and largely inline outlook” when the company reports after the close Thursday.

Bernstein’s Intel watchers — who have a “market perform” (also neutral) rating on the stock — seemed a bit more cautious, writing, “Overall numbers going forward still looking high to us. Fundamentals and valuation keep us sidelined.”

“If there is no memory, there’s no AI.”

FLASH FORWARD

ByMattPhillips

WedJan 212026

Matt Phillips6h

BNP upgrades Seagate on more durable cycle

Seagate Technology Holdings was up in early trading after analysts at BNP Paribas upgraded the shares to “outperform” from “neutral” and lifted their price target to $380 a share, implying a gain of almost 15% from where the stock is currently trading.

The maker of the somewhat stodgy technology known as hard disk drives — or HDDs in tech lingo — was one of the top stocks in the S&P 500 for much of last year as it was swept up in the AI data center trade.

Data centers need tons of storage capacity, and demand from hyperscalers has driven up prices and created shortages for disk drives, an industry that is dominated by a duopoly of Seagate and Western Digital. (BNP also maintained its “outperform” rating on WDC in a note Wednesday.)

The analysts at BNP say they pushed by the buy button on the stock after becoming more convinced that the upswing in sales was durable, writing:

“We have witnessed a structural shift happening in HDD industry, toward 1) an effective duopoly, 2) higher mix toward data centers, and 3) disciplined capex investments. These have supported our expectations of long-term, through-cycle profitability for the HDD industry. We are now upgrading Seagate from Neutral to Outperform as we are gaining greater conviction that robust data center storage demand could drive an upcycle longer than we initially expected. We think a secular re-rating of Seagate (as well as Western Digital) to over 20x is justified.”

Nate Becker7h

Stocks jump as Trump backs off European tariff threats, says “I won’t use force” to acquire Greenland

US President Donald Trump said he wouldn’t slap tariffs on several European countries after reaching what he called “the framework of a future deal” on Greenland with NATO’s secretary general.

Stocks extended their gains for the day on the news, having already been up earlier in the day when Trump said in a Davos, Switzerland, speech that he wouldn’t use force to acquire Greenland.

“Based upon this understanding, I will not be imposing the Tariffs that were scheduled to go into effect on February 1st,” Trump wrote on Truth social Wednesday afternoon. “Additional discussions are being held concerning The Golden Dome as it pertains to Greenland. Further information will be made available as discussions progress.”

Trump’s threats to acquire Greenland had put markets on edge in recent days, including a sharp drop on Tuesday.

Trump told a Davos crowd earlier Wednesday: “We probably won't get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force, where we would be frankly unstoppable, but I won’t do that... People thought I would use force. I don’t have to use force. I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force.”

He seemed to indicate that Denmark, which owns Greenland, could rebuff the US’s overtures to acquire the country without military retaliation.

“They have a choice. You can say yes and we will be very appreciative. Or you can say no and we will remember,” he said. Throughout his speech, Trump constantly reiterated his desire for the US to own Greenland.

The S&P 500 was up 1.5% while the Nasdaq 100 was up 1.7% as of 2:50 p.m. ET.