Macro & Markets Daily — May 02, 2026
Photo: lyceumnews.com
Saturday, May 2, 2026
The Big Picture
Records on records — but pay attention to what's not celebrating. The S&P 500 closed Friday at 7,230.12, up 0.29% on the session; the Nasdaq Composite closed at a fresh record 25,114.44, up 0.89% on the session; while the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down at 49,499.27, down 0.31% on the session as energy and industrials lagged. The 10-year Treasury yield settled at 4.38%, down 1.2 basis points on the session. Brent crude fell 5.12% on the session to $108.17 after Iran's updated peace proposal arrived in Washington via Pakistani mediators. Apple's blowout quarter did the heavy lifting on tech; oil's pullback gave the rest of the tape room to breathe. The uncomfortable subplot: a major U.S. airline went out of business overnight, and jet fuel was the murder weapon.
Today's Stories
Apple Just Had Its Best March Quarter Ever — and Then Raised the Dividend
The most important stock in the world reported Thursday afternoon, and it didn't just beat — it cleared its own guidance.
Apple posted fiscal Q2 revenue of $111.2 billion, up 17% year-over-year, with diluted EPS of $2.01 versus the $1.94 consensus. Apple had previously guided 13–16% revenue growth; the actual print came in above that range. The board raised the quarterly dividend by 4% from the previous quarterly dividend to $0.27 and authorized another $100 billion in share repurchases. iPhone delivered $56.99 billion; Services set a new all-time record at $30.98 billion — now nearly as large as iPhone on a quarterly basis, with structurally higher margins.
Reuters, via Investing.com, attributed the upside to the iPhone 17 Pro lineup and a lower-cost MacBook Neo, and reported Apple warned of higher memory costs beginning in June. The stock gained roughly 3% on the session and helped lift the Nasdaq to its record close.
If sustained: strong Services results would bolster the software-led growth thesis around Apple's eventual post-Cook leadership transition. If it fails: a soft July guide that exposes the memory-cost headwind could force the market to reprice the AI roadmap under new leadership. The signal to watch is Ternus's first earnings call.
Trump Declares Iran Hostilities "Terminated" — While the Blockade Stays and Oil Stays Above $100
The headline reads like a ceasefire. The fine print reads like legal housekeeping.
Trump told congressional leaders Friday that hostilities with Iran have "terminated" since the April 7 ceasefire — a declaration that landed on the 60-day limit under the War Powers Resolution that would otherwise have required congressional authorization to continue military operations. CNBC, Axios, PBS, and Euronews all confirmed the letter. The catch: several U.S. carrier strike groups remain in theater, the naval blockade of Iranian ports continues, and Trump told reporters Friday he is "not satisfied" with Iran's latest proposal, delivered through Pakistani mediators.
Markets read it the way it deserves to be read. WTI fell 2.98% on the session to $101.94; Brent dropped 5.12% on the session to $108.17. As of Friday, Kalshi traders were pricing a 63% probability that WTI crosses $120 this year and a greater-than-50% chance of nearly $127. ExxonMobil and Chevron used their earnings calls this week to warn that global commercial inventories and strategic reserves are thinning faster than the headline price suggests.
If the Strait reopens: oil could drop $20–$30 in days, the 2026 inflation path would reset lower, and the Fed's hawkish dissents may lose traction. If it fails: a tanker incident, a diplomatic breakdown, or a confirmed CENTCOM strike package leak could send Brent back toward $120 with no buffer underneath. Watch tanker movements through TankerTrackers; that's the signal that matters more than the rhetoric.
Spirit Airlines Shuts Down — Jet Fuel Is the Murder Weapon
The cheapest seat in the sky just disappeared, and the cause of death is on every refinery invoice in America.
Spirit Aviation Holdings began an orderly wind-down effective Saturday, May 2 — the first major U.S. airline shutdown in 25 years, after a last-minute federal rescue collapsed Friday evening. Per Al Jazeera, Spirit's restructuring plan had assumed jet fuel at $2.24 per gallon in 2026; by late April, prices had reached roughly $4.51 — a rise Al Jazeera linked to the Hormuz closure. CBS News, citing Cirium data, found that average round-trip fares jump roughly 23% after Spirit exits certain routes (about $60 on average). JetBlue is already advertising rescue fares.
What changes: a meaningful slice of domestic ultra-low-cost capacity disappears overnight, overlapping-route fares rise, and legacy carriers with corporate-traveler pricing power widen their moats. What failure of the next-tier ULCCs looks like: Frontier or Allegiant flagging fuel-cost guidance cuts on their next earnings calls. Spirit is the canary, not the crisis — but only if WTI drops back below $90.
⚡ What Most People Missed
- ISM manufacturing prices hit a four-year high: April's manufacturing PMI held at 52.7 with new orders accelerating to 54.1, but the prices subindex hit a four-year high while the employment subindex stayed in contraction. Growth without hiring, with input prices climbing — that's the data point that quietly undermines the case for rate cuts in 2026.
- Berkshire's cash pile hit $397 billion: Greg Abel chaired his first annual meeting in Omaha as Berkshire reported Q1 operating profit up roughly 18% year-over-year and net profit up roughly 120% year-over-year, with cash reserves at an all-time high of $397 billion — about the GDP of South Africa. Abel's first major capital deployment will define his tenure, and the size of that pile suggests he thinks something cheaper is coming. [Source: Wall Street CN — Chinese (Simplified)]
- China sanctions enforcement is back: The U.S. Commerce Department on May 2 sanctioned five Chinese petrochemical firms — including refiners in Shandong and Liaoning — for processing Iranian crude. Beijing's Ministry of Commerce responded publicly the same day. This is barely registering in English-language coverage, and it's the kind of friction that complicates the next round of trade talks. [Source: Wall Street CN — Chinese (Simplified)]
- Equity records, but credit isn't celebrating: QQQ closed at 674.15, up 0.96% on the session, but HYG slipped 0.39% on the session and TLT was flat on the session. Gramercy flagged a $16-per-barrel roundtrip in Brent over five days. When equities push records and high-yield credit drifts lower, somebody is wrong — and credit is usually the one paying attention.
- Coinbase reports an agreement on a disputed stablecoin provision: Per Bloomberg via Wall Street CN, Coinbase and key stakeholders reported an agreement on a disputed stablecoin earnings provision in draft U.S. market-structure legislation; the provision still faces congressional consideration as the bill moves toward potential floor votes. [Source: Wall Street CN — Chinese (Simplified)]
📅 What to Watch
- If Monday's ISM Services PMI prints hot on prices: the bond market's "no cuts in 2026" pricing becomes consensus, not a tail, and the curve steepens through the long end rather than the short.
- If DOE weekly oil inventories show an unexpected build Monday: it implies physical demand is already cracking under $100+ crude, which would be bearish for refiners and the airline restart trade and would weaken the soft-landing narrative by reducing refined-product demand.
- If Trump announces 25% European auto tariffs early next week: German automakers take the first hit, but the second-order story is whether Brussels retaliates on services — which is where the U.S. actually has concentrated its trade surpluses and would suffer asymmetric damage.
- If Nvidia guides cautiously on May 20 after the WSJ-flagged OpenAI revenue miss: the AI capex thesis underwriting the index rally gets its first real stress test, and weakness there would make next-quarter software and infrastructure vendors' guidance the first tell on enterprise AI pacing.
- If a tanker successfully transits Hormuz this week: oil could drop $15+ in a session, and Spirit's bankruptcy would look like a warning rather than a systemic trigger — while volatility-linked options sellers would face immediate mark-to-market risk.
- If Berkshire deploys even $50 billion of that cash pile in Q2: Abel signals he sees value at record highs, and the market gets its first read on whether the post-Buffett era will be more aggressive or more patient.
The Closer
A hardware engineer inheriting Tim Cook's $100 billion buyback, a Spirit Airlines gate agent explaining force majeure to a family bound for Orlando, and Greg Abel sitting on $397 billion in cash trying to look casual about it. Somewhere in Omaha this weekend, a man with the world's largest piggy bank watched the S&P close at a record and decided not to spend a dime — which is either the most disciplined trade of the year or the loudest warning nobody wanted to hear.
Stay sharp.
Forward this to the friend who keeps asking why their flight got cancelled.