(These are the market notes on today’s action by Mike Santoli, CNBC’s Senior Markets Commentator. See today’s video update from Mike above.) A firm finish to the week for stocks keeps the S & P 500 ‘s multi-day pullback to a minimum. With every excuse to retreat more notably — technical overbought conditions, unfriendly seasonal patterns, sell-the-news responses to flashy AI/chip news and a bump in Treasury yields — the index was only off 0.30% this week, less than a percent from the Sept. 22 record high, and hasn’t had even a 3% dip since May. The self-supporting rotational action and hair-trigger dip-buying reflex is underpinning this resilience, with some mostly expected but reassuring data on personal income, spending and PCE inflation providing cover. The equal-weighted S & P too is dead flat for the week. The action is not without its blemishes: The mega-tech leaders have been less reliable, regional banks have taken a step back and previously strong groups such as travel stocks have tired. Still, laggards waking up ( energy and some other commodity plays) and the constant handing of the baton from one Mag 7 name to another (one day Tesla , another Apple ) is keeping the tape on the rails. The slight upside to personal income and spending and on-target core PCE leaves undisturbed the core macro premise of this phase of the bull market: The Fed has room to trim rates even with the economy seeming far from recession and inflation on a plateau well above the 2% target. The equity market will always be fine with 5% nominal GDP (2% real, 3% inflation) so long as the bond market doesn’t rebel and the Fed doesn’t rush to choke off growth. So far, this is the case, with the 10-year Treasury up from 4% ten days ago but still at benign readings under 4.2%. Froth has been skimmed from some areas (crypto, quantum, recent IPOs) but hardly enough to notice on the year-long charts. Investor sentiment is content and optimistic without appearing to tip into dangerous aggression. The AAII retail-investor survey shows only slightly more bulls than bears. Three days of small losses and faintly hawkish Fed speeches dropped the CNN Fear/Greed Index from greed back to neutral. None of this means stocks are free of seasonal concerns or present a sweet risk/reward setup. Quarter-end rebalancing hovers over the market, valuations are high, credit spreads already so low they probably can’t hope for more, and the AI skepticism story that reached a loud din this week won’t go away soon. We’re starting to get splashy high S & P 500 targets for next year from some strategists. Still, for this week, it’s the anxious bears who are likely coming away more frustrated that the worry-free bulls, despite slim losses for the S & P.
