Nasdaq up 8% in May. Bitcoin handed back $2.3 billion.

Stock Market Edge

Records, Built Lovingly On An Unsigned Promise Futures firm while the actual deal waits in a tray somewhere

1. Premarket snapshot: S&P 500 futures rose 0.29% and Nasdaq 100 futures 0.57%, with Dow futures up 58 points and the Russell up 0.17%. The S&P closed Friday at a record 7,580.06. The VIX drifted toward 15.3, the picture of a market with no concerns it wishes to discuss.
2. Sector rotation: Technology carried May, hauling the Nasdaq Composite up more than 8%. The S&P added about 5%, the Dow nearly 3%. Asia joined in early Monday, with Korea’s Kospi up 1.31% to a record and Samsung up 3% to an all-time high. Hong Kong rose 0.73%; mainland China declined to celebrate.
3. Earnings or guidance: Results are clearing estimates at one of the best rates in years, which is the sort of thing nobody mentions when stocks fall. SoftBank pledged $53 billion for French AI infrastructure and rose 5%. Nvidia, the $5.11 trillion bellwether, idled near $211 and let Samsung claim an AI chip first.
4. Cross-asset nuance: Brent held near $92.56 after a 19% monthly collapse. Long-dated Treasury yields climbed as hot PCE quietly raised the odds of a hike nobody wants to name. Gold eased toward $4,574. The dollar steadied, leaving equities to do the believing alone.

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📊 There’s a level on SPX I’m watching closely this morning. My full analysis briefing has it – plus what happens if we hold it, and what happens if we don’t. [Read it here →]

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Crypto Market Edge

Bitcoin Skipped The Party And Pocketed The Cash Records on Wall Street, a wake on the blockchain

1. Price snapshot: Bitcoin sat near $73,600 early Monday, inside a $72,300 to $75,500 range and below every major moving average, well off the $80,000 it held earlier in the cycle. Ether clung to $2,500. Twenty-three of its trend signals read bearish, which is most of them.
2. Flows & positioning: Spot Bitcoin ETFs removed $2.30 billion in May, the largest monthly exit of 2026, after March and April had both added money. Cumulative net inflows slipped to $55.79 billion. The Fear and Greed Index sat in Extreme Fear in the low 20s and showed no interest in leaving.
3. Leadership & rotation: Bitcoin led the decline despite falling only 3.69% on the month, its 200-day average sliding since early May. Ether flashed daily Fear on May 27 and has been leaning on $2,500 ever since. Altcoins stayed silent, sensibly, with no rotation worth the name.
4. Catalysts & roadmap: Ether’s Glamsterdam upgrade still targets the first half of 2026, for anyone still keeping a calendar. The bigger lever is macro, where the ETF desk now sets the mood and retail merely watches. Warsh’s first FOMC on June 16-17 decides whether anyone remembers crypto exists.

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TL;DR – The Bottom Line

• Futures up. S&P 0.29%, Nasdaq 0.57%. June opened at records on a 60-day Iran deal Trump has not signed and is, by his own account, in no rush to.
• SoftBank threw $53 billion at French AI and rose 5%. Nvidia idled near $211 and watched Samsung grab a chip first. The bellwether keeps missing its own rallies.
• Brent near $92.56 after a 19% May rout, its worst month since the pandemic. The rally’s secret ingredient was cheaper oil, not anything resembling actual resolution.
• Bitcoin near $73,600, below every average, as ETFs walked out with $2.3 billion. Stocks made records while crypto sat in Extreme Fear and quietly counted its losses.
• April PCE hit 3.8%, the hottest since 2023. Warsh chairs his first FOMC June 16-17. Markets booked cuts; the inflation data appears to have booked something else.

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📌 Fun Fact

The “rabbits” superstition referenced is a real and well-documented piece of British folklore. The earliest recorded mention dates to a 1909 article in Notes and Queries, a long-running British folklore journal, which describes the practice of saying “rabbits” or “white rabbits” as the first word spoken on the morning of the first day of each month to bring good luck for the month ahead.

By the 1920s the custom had spread across Britain and into the United States, where it picked up its most famous practitioner: President Franklin D. Roosevelt is widely reported to have practised the ritual throughout his presidency.

Variants exist – some say “rabbit” once, some say it three times, some hold out for “white rabbits.” The form is regional. The intent is identical: good fortune for the month, granted only if the word is spoken before any other.

Phil’s hazy memory is correct that it is sometimes attached to specific months – in some traditions only the first of May, in others the first of March – but the most widely-documented version is, indeed, monthly.

[Source: Notes and Queries (1909), Oxford Dictionary of Superstitions, public folklore record]