Stocks closed sharply higher yesterday, mostly undoing Friday's losses, and in some cases more.

Friday's lower-than-expected Employment Situation report weighed on stocks last week.

But after everything was said and done (including prior months' revisions, etc.), employment in the private sector came in 83,000 new jobs last month, up from June's downwardly revised 3,000 (from 73,000).

The market also likely realized we're still near the beginning of earnings season. And since stocks typically go up during earnings season, there might very well be a reluctance to get too negative while earnings, so far, have been coming in better-than-expected.

After the close yesterday, Palantir reported a positive EPS surprise of 14.3%, and a positive sales surprise of 6.97%. That translated to a quarterly EPS growth rate of 77.8% vs. this time last year, and a sales growth of 47.5%. They also raised their full-year revenue forecast. They were up 4.14% in the regular session before earnings, and up another 5.00% in after-hours trade following earnings.

We've got another 1,600 companies on deck to report earnings between today and the rest of the week, including Advanced Micro Devices and Arista Networks today (after the close), Uber, AppLovin and Disney tomorrow (Wednesday), and Eli Lilly and Constellation Energy on Thursday, to name some.

Last Friday was August 1^st, the deadline for a trade deal or higher tariffs. The U.S. signed a deal the other week with the E.U. (our largest partner), and Japan (our fifth largest partner). There's a working agreement with China (fourth largest partner). There's an August 12^th deadline on them. But it looks like negotiations are progressing well and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has hinted at an extension. President Trump gave Mexico (our second largest partner) a 90-day extension just last week. There have been other deals with the U.K., South Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, and more. The aforementioned countries (who we have deals with), represent nearly 65% of U.S. imports.

We still don't have a deal with Canada (our third largest partner). But reciprocal tariffs will 'only' be applied to goods not covered under the USMCA. Canada accounts for roughly 12% of U.S. imports. But only 14% of that tally falls outside of the prior agreement. So adding up all of the countries the U.S. has deals with, including Canadian goods that fall under the USMCA, that represents about 75% of all U.S. imports.

India, who does not yet have a deal with the U.S. (although negotiations are ongoing), was told by the President yesterday that they will be subject to additional tariffs. After 8/1 came and went, they were going to be charged 20-25% on goods coming into the U.S. But given their purchases of Russian oil, and then reselling it on the open market at significantly higher prices, the President said he will raise tariffs "substantially," as a penalty (something he had said he would do to any country buying Russian oil).

In other news, yesterday's Motor Vehicles Sales rose to 16.4 million units (annualized) vs. last month's 15.3M and views for 15.6M.

And Factory Orders slipped to a -4.8% m/m change, down from last month's 8.3%, but better than the consensus for -5.0%.

Today we'll get the International Trade in Goods and Services report, the PMI Composite report, and the ISM Services Index.

The market is off to a strong start this week.

But given last Friday's sell-off, we'll have to see if the market can keep those gains and build upon them this week.

See you tomorrow,