SPX: S&P 500 Futures Rise After Strong First Week of May, Apple Shares Boost Rally

Slowing job growth fueled stocks’ momentum across the board with all three major indexes finishing in the green for the week.

• Futures contracts tied to the S&P 500 were pointing higher early Monday after the broad-based benchmark added 1.2% on Friday. The Wall Street favorite shot up 0.5% for the week on a strong lineup of earnings reports coupled with monthly data, which suggested that the US economy is cooling. The other two major averages — the Dow Jones and the Nasdaq Composite — also wrapped up the week in gains.
• Apple shares AAPL jumped 6% and erased nearly all losses from this year. Investors cheered the iPhone maker’s not-that-bad revenue of $90.8 billion and the $110 billion share buyback plan. Further, US employers added 175,000 new workers to the labor market in April, below analysts’ forecasts of 238,000. The unemployment rate ticked up to 3.9% in signs of an economic slowdown.
• Optimism over the highly anticipated interest rate cuts is back in play. Fewer jobs created indicate that the Federal Reserve’s aggressive rate campaign might be working. If favorable economic data keeps trickling in, the US central bank might pivot to a rate cut sooner rather than later. But if, for example, inflation data comes in higher than expected, rate cuts could get pushed further back.