Stocks closed mostly lower yesterday, but the Nasdaq, once again, finished in the green.

Apple, after gaining more than 5% on Wednesday, added another 3.18% yesterday. Their better-than-expected earnings announcement last week and reassuring guidance definitely helped. And so did Wednesday's announcement that they will be investing another $100 billion into the U.S. over the next 4 years, adding to the $500 billion already committed. Apple's "American Manufacturing Program" that expands their manufacturing capabilities in the U.S. is being well received. And it suggests that Apple might be able to avoid a portion of the additional tariffs that would be levied on foreign manufactured goods.

Apple is still down -12.1% YTD, which makes it the worst Magnificent 7 stock. But they are looking up. And they are having great week so far with a WTD gain of 8.43%.

Earnings were a bit mixed today.

Celsius reported before the open and posted a positive EPS surprise of 104%, and a positive sales surprise of 14.5%. That translated to a quarterly EPS growth rate of 67.9% vs. this time last year, and a sales growth of 83.9%. They soared by 17.27% yesterday.

But Eli Lilly before the open reported a positive EPS surprise of 12.5%, and a positive sales surprise of 5.48%. That equated to a quarterly EPS growth rate of 61.0%, and a sales growth of 37.7%. But they were down by -14.14%. That was largely due to disappointment over their obesity pill results which showed decent weight loss over 12 months, but a higher-than-expected number of people in the study discontinue use due to side effects.

After the close, we heard from SoundHound. They posted a positive EPS surprise of 50.0%, and a positive sales surprise of 29.2%. They lost -3 cents a share, but it was a marked improvement vs. last year's -11 cent loss. And sales growth was an eye-popping 217%. They were off 0.74% in the regular session before earnings, but were up 10% in after-hours trade following earnings. They cited their AI innovations for their "strongest ever quarter."

Today we'll get another 144 companies on deck to report including Lamar Advertising, Plains All America Pipeline, and Under Armour.

It's been a busy week of earnings this week.

Next week looks to be a busy one as well with as many as 1,347 companies in queue to report.

In other news yesterday, Weekly Jobless Claims rose by 7,000 to 226K vs. the consensus for 220K. The smoother 4-week moving average, however, came in at 220.75K vs. last week's 221.25K.

With one more day to go, all of the indexes are up for the week. And it won?t take much to keep it that way.

With only a little more than 4½ months left in the year (amazing how fast time flies), I'm still expecting a 20% gain in the S&P this year. And given it's 'only' up 7.79% YTD so far, it looks like there's potentially a lot more upside to go.

Tariff concerns notwithstanding, there's plenty of good news in the economy and the market. And that's being seen in the largely better-than-expected earnings. And the forecast for solid EPS growth over the next 4 quarters. Let's also not forget the interest rate cuts that are expected in the coming months (the Fed is still forecasting 2 rate cuts this year). And of course, the continuing AI boom.

I'm expecting a busy rest of the year. And if all goes well, a pretty spectacular one.

See you tomorrow,