Relief arrived from a few directions Friday, encouraging investors to keep buying the dip and driving indexes up amid the chaos and uncertainty of a global trade war. One part came from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A unit of the US Department of Labor, it reported that hiring remained robust despite Donald Trump’s rollout of “reciprocal tariffs.” The president’s now-famous tariff chart reveal kneecapped stocks worldwide and managed to destabilize a few pillars of the US economy. Since then, Trump has retreated on some fronts while pleading with Xi Jinping for a chat.

Given that China is now making noises about dealing on trade, all of that combined to spur some risk taking. US stocks not only tallied a second week of gains, but they sent the S&P 500 to its longest winning streak in more than 20 years. In doing so, equities managed to erase all the losses from last month. 

“We may have reached peak policy uncertainty,” said Kevin Thozet, a member of the investment committee at Carmignac in Paris. “There are talks ongoing, and Trump seems to have watered down some of his policies. If you add in that the earnings season has been fairly positive, the overall backdrop isn’t that bad.”  

As nice as that may sound, there’s still a sobering number out there for Trump. The S&P begins May down 6% since his inauguration, and while Wall Street parties, the damage from three months of tariff turbulence is about to start landing on US consumers like a brick. —David E. Rovella

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US stocks are in for another drop that will eventually lead to a bear market in the coming months, according to veteran technical strategist Tom DeMark, who accurately called this year’s top in February and subsequent April low. DeMark—a closely-followed analyst who’s advised billionaire investors including Paul Tudor Jones, Leon Cooperman and Steve Cohen—uses a system for predicting where markets will move divined from a half century of chart gazing based on mathematical relationships.

DeMark focuses on trend exhaustion, with his mantra being markets top on good news and bottom on bad news. “Historically, markets don’t bottom on good news, like last month on positive trade developments,” DeMark said. “Stocks typically bottom when everything is terrible and everyone is forced to throw in the towel—but that hasn’t happened yet. Stocks were just way oversold and overdue for a bounce. Ever since then, equities have struggled technically underneath the surface and are in danger of a big drop.”

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he’ll meet with Trump in Washington on Tuesday, their first face-to-face encounter since he won an election in part on an anti-Trump message. The meeting will focus on trade issues and the broader relationship between Canada and the US, the prime minister said. He added that the talks will be “difficult, but constructive,” and cautioned that no one should expect an immediate deal on the trade war, which has seen the US place tariffs on Canadian steel, autos and other products, and Canada retaliate with its own levies on a range of US-made goods. After months of Trump insulting Canada and threatening to annex it, what remains of America’s relationship with its neighbor is an open question. Carney has said that the old economic and security relationship with the US “is over.”

Key OPEC+ nations are discussing making another production increase of roughly 400,000 barrels a day in June ahead of a video-conference to set policy on Saturday, delegates said. The group led by Saudi Arabia and Russia stunned oil traders with a 411,000 barrel-a-day hike that was triple the amount originally planned for May, in an apparent bid to discipline its over-producing members. They’re considering doing the same again next month, said the delegates, The move would also probably be welcomed by Trump, who has called on the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to lower fuel costs, and plans to visit the Middle East this month.  

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