Stocks closed higher again yesterday. The Dow put in a new all-time high. Same for the S&P 500. And the Nasdaq notched a new all-time high close. The small-cap Russell 2000 just missed setting a record of their own, and had to settle for 'just' their second highest close ever. But the mid-cap S&P 400 hit a new all-time high and close.

Still no news from the White House on last week's "memorandum of understanding." But the ceasefire is still in place, even though it's being tested every day. Fighting between Israel and Hezbollah continued, despite the previous day's ceasefire. A cargo ship in the Gulf was hit by a projectile. An Iranian outlet has said Iran has suspended indirect negotiations with the U.S. And a senior Iranian military officer said a return to hostilities with the U.S. is "inevitable."

Nonetheless, the ceasefire remains in place. And peace negotiations, according to U.S. reports, are continuing.

BTW, crude oil was up 1.38% yesterday, but is down -20.6% from their conflict highs made on 4/7. Although, for context, oil is still up 39.4% since the war began, and up 62.7% YTD.

In other news, the record AI-driven rally continues.

Hewlett Packard soared yesterday by 19.47%, after reporting positive sales and earnings surprises the day before, and posting a 108% quarterly EPS growth rate, and 40.0% sales growth. They cited an expansion of AI data centers as boosting demand for its servers and networking products. They also said that AI orders and AI backlog nearly doubled. They lifted full-years EPS guidance to a midpoint of $3.40 vs. estimates for a midpoint of $2.40. And they lifted their full-year revenue growth outlook to 29%-33% from 17%-22%.

After the close yesterday we heard from another AI-related name, Palo Alto Networks. They posted a positive EPS surprise of 4.94%, and a positive sales surprise of 2.00%. That translated to a quarterly EPS growth rate of 6.25% vs. this time last year, and a sales growth of 31.0%. They too cited AI for their growth, saying AI threats are driving demand, and that "enterprise AI security spending continues to strengthen." They also raised revenue guidance for Q4 to $3.35B-$3.36B vs. estimates for $3.28B, and raised full-year EPS guidance to $3.78 (midpoint) vs. $3.65-$3.70 estimate (or 2.9% higher). They were off -1.10% in the regular session before earnings, but jumped as much as 14% in after-hours trade following earnings.

We'll hear from another 74 companies on deck to report earnings today, including AI-related Broadcom, CrowdStrike, and C3.ai, to name a few.

On the economic report front, yesterday's Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey report (or JOLTS for short) showed 7.618 million job openings for April, up from March's 6.887M and views for 6.833M.

But the report everybody is really waiting for is this week's always important Employment Situation report on Friday.

In the meantime, today we'll get MBA Mortgage Applications, the PMI Composite Report, the ISM Services Index, Factory Orders, and the ADP Employment Report.

And we'll see if the markets can keep their winning streak alive.

See you tomorrow,