Hopes for some good weekend news build: S&P 500 climbs to the best levels of the day

Generally in a bear market you see selling into a long weekend on heightened risks for bad news. A good example was during the 2023 banking crisis when risk assets were sold on Fridays because of fears of a bank failure.

Now, we're seeing that reverse. Why?

Last weekend offers a powerful example. Late on Friday, the US exempted computers, chips and other electronics from reciprocal tariffs and that sparked some major optimism. Some of that was dashed before the Monday open as Trump said it was a short-term measure but we could get a breakthough between the US and China or something else this weekend.

What else?

I'm watching for progress on a US-Japan deal as they met this week. If we get a resolution that brings Japan rates back to zero (rather than the 10% floor) it would be a good sign. I'm doubtful that comes but you never know with Trump.

The flipside of hopeful buying into the weekend is that if there's no news on the weekend then there is a bias towards selling early on Monday.