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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Public.com presents The Rundown, your daily market update in 10 minutes.
My name is Zaid Admani, and today is Monday, May 11th. In today's episode, we'll preview this upcoming week, including multiple inflation reports. We'll also tell you why pharma stocks are surging on the hantavirus headlines and whether Moderna can pull off another COVID era run. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out why Jalen Brunson might be hopping on an earnings call soon.
We got a great show for you today. Let's go. Stocks continue to roll. Both the S&P and NASDAQ are coming off their sixth straight week of gains. The S&P 500 jumped 2.4% last week, while the NASDAQ surged 4.5%. And this rally right now is being carried by chip stocks. The SOX Semiconductor Index was up over 10% last week alone, and it's now gone up 65% on the year.
And if you look over just the last six weeks, semiconductor companies have added roughly $3.8 trillion in market cap. Some of the biggest winners so far include Intel, which is up nearly 240% this year, Micron, which is up 160%, and AMD, which is up 110%. And I can't forget about Sandisk. It's the best performing stock in the S&P 500, up 550% this year.
Chapter 2: Why are pharma stocks surging due to hantavirus headlines?
By the way, we actually did a deep dive over the weekend about chip stocks and whether or not we're in a bubble right now. We've gotten some great feedback on that episode. So definitely go check it out if you haven't already. Now, zooming out, this chip rally is one part of the story. I think the other part though is the overall incredible earnings season.
Nearly 90% of the S&P 500 companies have reported earnings by now, and about 84% have beat on earnings estimates. And this is the stat that blows my mind. Overall earnings growth is tracking to rise 28% compared to Q1 of last year, which would be the strongest growth rate since 2021. I mean, a 28% earnings growth is just insane.
And that's another reason why stocks keep grinding higher despite everything else happening in the world. Speaking of which, we did get an update on the Iran situation over the weekend. President Trump rejected Iran's latest response to a peace proposal, calling it totally unacceptable. So the straight up war moves remains effectively closed.
And as a result, oil prices are ticking higher this morning. WTI is trading around ninety seven dollars a barrel and Brent crude is above one hundred and three dollars. You know, the biggest economic impact from the Iran war has been elevated oil prices and the impact that's having on inflation. We're actually gonna be getting inflation data this week.
The April CPI report drops on Tuesday morning and current estimates are calling for the largest monthly jump in inflation since 2022, driven mostly by higher oil and gas prices. So we'll see what those official numbers come in at tomorrow morning. We're also getting the PPI wholesale inflation report on Wednesday. Oh, and then on Thursday, we're getting the retail sales data.
So we'll see what kind of impact higher prices are having on consumers. So a very interesting week coming up, a lot of macro data to talk about along with some earnings mixed in as well. So it's a great time to get subscribed to the podcast if you haven't already and tune in every day to stay in the loop. Let's run through some headlines. starting with the hantavirus.
Wall Street is starting to pay attention to the hantavirus and several pharma stocks are jumping this morning as a result. Now, quick background here. The hantavirus is a deadly respiratory disease typically spread by rodents. It was recently flagged by the World Health Organization after an outbreak on a cruise ship. And so far, the WHO has confirmed just six cases and three passengers have died.
But the market is starting to get COVID flashbacks and that's why COVID favorite Moderna is spiking The stock was up 12% on Friday, and it's up another 5% this morning after the pharma company confirmed it has done early stage research on the hantavirus with the US Army.
I'm sure a lot of you guys remember, you know, Moderna became a household name during COVID after launching one of the authorized vaccines. And the impact that it had on their business was just crazy. Before COVID, Moderna was doing about $60 million a year in revenue.
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Chapter 3: How are semiconductor stocks performing in the current market?
And Circle has some heavy hitters that are investing, BlackRock, Apollo, ARK Invest, and Dreesen Horowitz, and also the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange. Circle's CEO said the company is essentially building an operating system for the financial internet.
The vision is that stable coins become the default way that money moves on the internet, especially with the rise of AI agents making payments and transactions on their own. So we'll see if that ends up materializing. You know, Circle stock has been on a wild ride since it IPO'd back in June of last year. Shares are up around 40% from the IPO price, but down more than 50% from the post IPO pop.
Now, one of the risks for Circle is that it's too reliant on interest rates. Right now, Circle makes most of its money from the interest it earns on the U.S. government bonds it holds to back the USDC stable coins. So if interest rates come down, then that's a direct hit to their profits.
Not to mention there's growing competition as banks and fintech companies start launching their own stable coins, which could eat into Circle's market share. But look, if this ARK blockchain thing becomes the new rails of the digital economy, that could be huge for the company. And it helps that a lot of big name Wall Street firms are backing that vision.
Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. See, Monday... And the stock has been getting absolutely crushed this year, down 50% heading into this earnings report because investors were worried that AI would make a lot of enterprise software obsolete. But the reality is AI is helping these enterprise software companies.
Monday.com, for example, rolled out an AI agent builder and AI-powered tools that can do things like source sales leads and handle customer outreach automatically. And that's starting to pick up adoption across their customers. So instead of AI becoming a threat to Monday.com, it's becoming a growth driver.
The company raised its 2026 revenue guidance and reported that the number of big enterprise customers spending over $500,000 a year jumped 74%. So as a result, shares of monday.com are up around 20% this morning at the time of this recording. Now on the flip side, Nintendo shares are plummeting after the gaming company warned that sales of the Nintendo Switch 2 would fall this year.
Nintendo expects Switch 2 sales to come in at 16.5 million units this year, which would be down from the nearly 20 million units sold last year when it was released. And then to make matters worse, Nintendo is planning to increase the price of the Switch 2, taking it from 450 up to $500 in the US starting on September 1st because of rising memory chip prices.
And then investors are also worried about the gaming pipeline coming out of Nintendo. Nintendo expects game sales across the original Switch and Switch 2 to fall about 11% this year. So you can see why investors are a bit worried. Nintendo stock is down around 8% in Tokyo today and now down 34% for the year. Let's wrap the show with a fun fact.
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