We hit the closing bell this Monday with the strongest day in the markets in weeks — and these have been very trying weeks! All 11 sectors on the S&P 500 were higher for the day, with 27 of the Dow 30 companies in the green for the day. The Dow rose more than 600 points , +1.98%, while the S&P was +1.86%. The Nasdaq gained +1.59% and the small-cap Russell 200 was +0.75%.

We’re still well off the levels we were early last week, which cratered on a nightmare Hump Day session where the Dow fell over -1100 points. But we are half-way back to where we were last Tuesday, with the Dow and S&P now sporting two-day winning streaks. JPMorgan JPM, Visa V and Apple AAPL were the strongest blue-chips on the day, while VMWare VMW shot up nearly +25% based on acquisition talks this morning.

Broadcom AVGO has reportedly offered $140 per share for VMWare, which would mark this deal around $60 billion — in other words, one of the biggest acquisitions by dollar amount in existence. Michael Dell is a 40% holder of VMWare, and is considered highly involved with this deal. It would bring chip-maker Broadcom a formidable cloud business, and one in which the synergies appear — at first glance, anyway — not to trigger any particular regulatory red flags.

Zoom Video ZM even outperformed on Q1 earnings after the bell, filling-in some of the huge sell-off the stock has endured since its October 2020 highs: earnings of $1.03 per share easily surpassed the 88 cents per share in the Zacks consensus, though still down from the $1.32 per share posted in the year-ago quarter. Revenues were in-line with expectations at $1.073 billion, for +12% growth from a year ago.

Zoom also gave slight adjustments higher for next-quarter and full-year earnings guidance, with a net dollar expansion rate at +123%. The company has never disappointed on quarterly earnings in its publicly-traded existence, going back to 2019. Shares had “zoomed” up 17% on the news, and have now ebbed back to around +15%. Shares are still down roughly 50% from this time a year ago.

Tomorrow we’ll get earnings results from Best Buy BBY, Nordstrom JWN and AutoZone AZO. We hope to see a turnaround in the Retail space, as a few companies posted disappointing quarters in the past week or so. PMI Manufacturing and Services data also hits the tape Tuesday. With any luck, we’ll be able to keep this rally somewhat intact. Then again, keep your eyes open for another whipsaw.

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