Weekend Update #279
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Equity markets traded higher this week as reports indicated the U.S. and Iran were approaching a finalized agreement on a 60-day extension of the ceasefire and a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump Friday entered the Situation Room to make a final determination about the agreement, but it was unclear as of market close if any decision had been made. The president on Friday reiterated that any deal must include an agreement for Iran to never obtain a nuclear weapon, unrestricted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, no tolls on shipping traffic, removal of any remaining mines, and a U.S.-led removal of enriched nuclear material trapped in the U.S.-targeted sites in Iran. The progress in nearing a deal led the S&P 500 to its 9th straight week of gains.
In economic data this week, the Consumer Confidence report for May showed a beat on economists’ estimates as consumers perceived slight improvements in future expectations for job availability. Personal Income in April fell below economists’ 0.4% month-over-month expecation, coming in flat at 0.0%. Personal Spending on the other hand rose 0.5% month-over-month in April and 0.1% on an inflation-adjusted basis. The Personal Savings Rate was just 2.6%, a low since mid-2022, showing that consumers’ financial conditions are getting more pressured as energy prices have increased since the start of the conflict in Iran. The Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge, the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Price Index, rose 3.8% year-over-year in April, a new high since May 2023. On an inflation-adjusted basis, core PCE rose 3.3% year-over-year, which shows the pressure the FOMC will face when determining an appropriate interest rate path to balance inflation and labor market risks. Both headline and core PCE showed better-than-expected readings on a monthly basis, though, rising 0.4% and 0.2%, respectively. Initial Jobless Claims for the week ended May 23 were 215,000, little changed from the range of readings so far in 2026. The second release of Q1 2026 GDP showed lower overall growth than previously reported, growing 1.6% compared to the prior 2.0% figure.
In company-specific news this week, robust trends within the AI infrastructure buildout and a turnaround in software sentiment supported stock performance. Software entered a full-fledged bull market this week, rising ~30% from April lows. Snowflake in particular provided strong guidance in its quarterly earnings report and announced a $6 billion deal with AWS. NetApp reported record results alongside an expanded agreement with Google Cloud. Micron continued a surge this week, topping $1 trillion in market cap in the memory/AI-storage trade. Dell delivered blowout +88% revenue growth and strong guidance as AI server demand accelerated. The AI trade was also supported by Anthropic’s recent fundraising round valuing the company at $965 billion, topping OpenAI’s valuation for the first time as reports suggest the company is nearing an IPO.
Friday’s Close (Weekly Performance)
S&P 500 7,580.06 (+1.43%)
Nasdaq 26,972.62 (+2.39%)
Dow Jones 51,032.46 (+0.90%)
Thank you Blue Room Senior Analyst JARED FENLEY
Michael Amoroso
President & Chief Executive Officer
Thank you Naresh, and welcome team. Welcome to our investor community. We’re very excited to be here with you. We’ve got half the team across the pond at EASL. On site there’s a palpable excitement. Again, it’s my pleasure. Maybe the most proud day I’ve had so far out of a series of proud days at my time at Precision. So, thanks for being with us this morning.
First, I am accompanied by a world-renowned team here. MF Yuen is really our principle investigator. He’s got the most experience. We thought it super important to come to you credibly with the people doing the work. MF really needs no introduction, and it would probably take me a half hour to do all of the titles you have. He is the division head of gastroenterology and hepatology at the Li Shu Fan Medical Foundation out of Hong Kong. We’re really, really excited and blessed to have MF with us.
Dr. Sulkowski, who probably fields more phone calls than he’d like from me on a regular basis — again needs no introduction. He’s the division head infectious disease at John Hopkins, special advisor to myself, to the team at Precision, who's really made an incredible impact of overseeing clinical development and making sure we're making the right steps for patients.
And Cassie Gorsuch joins us in voice and video and in spirit, really excited to first share a data today of Cassie has added to the family, right? So Cassie is now out on maternity leave. She is really the lifeblood behind the program, the gene editing, the first dream of gene editing, a viral genome and eliminating a virus really is Cassie. And she's with us not only on video and voice today, she'll be presenting the data, which she taped before she went out, but she's added a beautiful baby boy to the family. So we're happy to have this team with us and we'll open this team up for a full panel to answer Q&A and answer all the cell side questions at the conclusion of the presentation.
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