(These are the market notes on today’s action by Mike Santoli, CNBC’s Senior Markets Commentator. See today’s video update from Mike above.) More apprehensive chopping around the week-long range with a slightly firmer tone to end the week, as the urgent selling in regional lenders abated, a China-trade agreement remains in limbo and investors ask whether a 2% dip from a record high has been enough to skim away some market froth and set the rally on firmer footing. No answers on the final front. The S & P 500 has spent all week between the high and low from last Friday, when a 2.7% drop shattered an unusually long period without even a 1% daily decline. The index has now taken on the look of a sideways range stretching back five weeks or so and has crisscrossed the 6667 line daily this week – the level representing ten-times the generational low of 666 and change from March of 2009. While the China flareup had folks comparing this tape to April’s tariff panic, it’s worth remembering that before April there was February, when crowded positioning in quality/momentum stocks unwound in a messy way even before the market started keying off trade hostilities. On the plus side, this has so far simply been a near-test of the S & P’s 50-day average (now at 6564) with a potential double-bottom formed. The ramp to a record high some eight days ago featured orderly, rotational index action with a more erratic surge in low-quality, speculative stocks and fevered options buying by retail traders occurring in parallel. Just in the past two days, the spicy, junky stuff has come in a bit ( quantum , drones , upstart nuclear power ), helpfully. If bitcoin remains a reliable risk-appetite gauge, it is flashing a bit of concern, unable to rebound from last week’s sudden liquidation wave, leaving it at a pretty interesting spot near its post-2024-election high and not far above its 200-day moving average. It is getting a bit oversold, though, so a rescue rally attempt before long should not be too surprising. Regional banks bounced a bit, still down a couple percent on the week, as Thursday’s flush lower amid a few separate but coincident credit hiccups exacerbated underlying unease with the opaque and possibly lax lending across private credit and among smaller commercial banks. The lack of forced selling and the reassuring comments of big bank CEOs and American Express ‘s strong results drained some of the anxiety around the group. The whole ballgame for this phase of the bull market remains a self-sustaining AI-investment boom alongside a Fed about to cut rates more into what most believe is a sturdy and perhaps even reaccelerating economy. The China-tariff threats and credit wobbliness matter mostly as challenges to the notion of the Fed cutting for “good reasons” rather than to prop up a faltering economy. The Volatility Index was uncomfortably high above 24 entering Friday, a good bit higher than one would expect for a mere 2% index dip, leading to some hand-wringing over what volatility traders are bracing for or what stresses are being picked up by hedgers. It bled lower as the S & P 500 lifted a bit. Likewise, the refusal of gold to take a break before Friday was becoming a worry point. With stocks, yields , the dollar and oil all down, but gold continuing to melt up, it suggested risk-off/capital-flight action. Or simply small momentum traders pressing their upside bets, as the massive volumes in the GLD ETF have suggested. In either case, gold easing back more than 1%Friday is likely a relief, even if it suggests the metal itself is now vulnerable to a sharper setback from such an extended position.
