Yahoo Finance

Last week was another great period for stocks. We joked about a possible "V" bottom in recent weeks, but (so far) that is the shape the major indices seem to be tracing out. We have likened the recent decline to events during the pandemic and quoted Mark Twain: "History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes." The indices have made tremendous progress in a very short period, but we note that some of the best short-term advances have turned out to be bear-market rallies. The above brings us to the current situation, and we have very good comparisons to the pandemic, to times when we were emerging from a bear market, and to rallies in a bear market. No one said forecasting the future was going to be easy! In nine days, the S&P 500 has surged 10.3%, the largest nine-day run since October 2011 (at the end of a nasty correction and during a volatile period). The current gains also were surpassed by the pandemic recovery as well as in March and July of 2009, at the end of the financial crisis. That said, we had similar gains in the fall of 2008, and that was prior to the drop into 2009. On the bull side, the S&P 500 has retraced more than 61.8% of the correction, there have been breadth thrusts, the daily moving-average convergence/divergence (MACD) has turned bullish, and we got a buy signal from the weekly Bollinger Bands when price fell below and then recaptured the lower band. The index is just under its 50-week average at 5,687 and the 200-day is at 5,746. A break over the March 25 high at 5787 would complete a 950-point inverse head-and-shoulders pattern and likely would lead to all-time highs. (Mark Arbeter, CMT)

Mastercard operates the world's second-largest electronic payments network, providing processing services and payment product platforms, including credit, debit, ATM, prepaid, and commercial payments under the Mastercard, Maestro, and Cirrus brands. Mastercard went public in 2006 and is a member of the S&P 500.

Stocks are up at midday, with the Nasdaq rallying on strong tech earnings. Weekly jobless claims reported this morning showed a sharp increase. The number reported for the week was 241,000, which compares to readings closer to 200,000 for most of the year and the four-week moving average of 226,000. We're not worried yet about the economy, despite yesterday's report that GDP outright declined in 1Q, but these trends are beginning to head in a negative direction. Tomorrow's nonfarm payrolls report will indeed be a critical indicator.

Mastercard is the second-largest payment processor in the world, having processed close to $10 trillion in volume during 2024. Mastercard operates in over 200 countries and processes transactions in over 150 currencies.