May Charts of Interest: What's Driving This Spring's Rally
By Charles Rotblut, CFA
This spring's jump in the stock market has been strong. In this month's charts of interest, we look at the two drivers behind the strength: corporate earnings and semiconductor stocks. We then switch to inflation before ending with a look at the tightening competitive race in artificial intelligence (AI).
As a reminder, the monthly charts of interest highlights charts and tables I've come across that have not made their way into other AAII commentaries.
First-Quarter 2026 Earnings Have Been Good
Earnings have been a driver of this spring's market rally. Corporations are reporting profit growth, and analysts have been upwardly revising their second-quarter and full-year 2026 earnings forecasts. First Trust Portfolios' Robert Carey and Peter Leonteos shared this takeaway: “The S&P 500 index's trailing 12-month price return of 30.6% [through May 8, 2026] nearly matches its [first-quarter 2026] year-over-year earnings growth rate of 27.7% as of the same date.”
Navigating the Rise of Prediction Markets Participating in prediction markets should be regarded as speculative due to their binary outcomes, novel nature, evolving regulation, relatively high costs and low liquidity, as discussed in the May 2026 AAII Journal.
Upcoming Live Webinar
Tuesday, May 26, 2026, 7:30 PM CT
AAII + BetterInvesting: Finding Growth Beyond the Headlines
Optimism among individual investors about the short-term outlook for stocks decreased. This week’s special question asked AAII members how they would describe the earnings guidance given by companies during first-quarter 2026 earnings season. More about this week’s results.
This week’s results:
Bullish: 31.7%, down 7.6 points Neutral: 24.7%, up 0.6 points Bearish: 43.6%, up 7.0 points
The AAII Journal — Read our ad-free monthly magazine online. Topics covered include stock and fund strategies, portfolio building, financial planning, investor-friendly how-to guides and more.
The PRISM Wealth-Building Process — A framework that helps you align your investing decisions with your goals and guides you through life changes.
AAII.com Website — Includes easy-to-access investing ideas from our stock and fund graders, our prebuilt stock screens, and our model portfolios.
A+ Tools — Try out our comprehensive screeners for mutual funds, ETFs and stocks, plus use the My Portfolio tool to analyze your asset allocation.
We make no representations or warranties that any investor will, or is likely to, achieve profits similar to those shown, because past, hypothetical or simulated performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. Before making an investment decision, you should consider your circumstances and whether the information on our content is applicable to your situation. This information was prepared in good faith and we accept no liability for any errors or omissions. The full disclaimer can be read here.
