S&P 500 posted the 2nd-best weekly gain since November 2023. Weekly market recap, trading week 21/2025

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In this series, you can find financial markets posts with the highest number of interactions from my X platform feed over the most recent week. I am aware that not everybody uses X regularly, so I thought it could provide some value to your analysis, and investment process. These posts are surrounded by extra charts, commentary and explanations of complicated topics.

US stocks declined last week after a significant rally over the last month, spurred by rising government bond yields and new tariff threats coming from President Trump. The US Dollar declined while gold, Bitcoin, and silver prices surged.

The president said he is recommending a 50% tariff on the European Union as the EU “has been very difficult to deal with”. He emphasized that he is not looking for a deal, and tariffs will take effect on June 1st.

Meanwhile, according to the Wall Street Journal, Trump is ready to reduce the 50% tariffs he announced on the EU if the EU raises tariffs on goods from China.

Trump also threatened to impose a 25% tariff on Apple, Samsung, and other phone makers if their products are not made in the US.

Lastly, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Friday that several large trade deals are coming over the next couple of weeks, while the US will be negotiating again in person with China.

I recommend reading the piece below to understand why tariffs are just one of many tools to achieve the US goals and how they could potentially impact markets.

1) Weekly performance. In the first post attached, you can see last week’s performance of the major US indexes, the VIX volatility index, 10-year Treasury yield, the US Dollar, gold, silver, oil and Bitcoin.

- S&P 500 fell 2.6%
- Nasdaq index dropped 2.4%
- Dow Jones declined 2.4%
- Russell 2000 (small caps) tumbled 3.5%
- US 10-year Treasury yield increased 6 bps
- VIX jumped 9%
- US Dollar index fell 1.9%
- WTI Crude Oil decreased 0.4%
- Silver rose 3.9%
- Gold jumped 5.4%

- Bitcoin surged 5.5%

For the trading week ending May 30, key events are:

- US Markets Closed - Memorial Day on Monday

- US Consumer Confidence for May on Tuesday

- Fed minutes on Wednesday

- US Q1 2025 GDP data (second reading) on Thursday

- US PCE Inflation for April on Friday

- US Consumer Sentiment for May on Friday

- At least 11 Fed speakers

Short but busy week ahead.

2) Such a divergence between retail and professional investors has never happened before:

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