Stocks Rise 10% in April on Spectacular Earnings

A board shows stock prices at the New York Stock Exchange on April 22, 2026. Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty ImagesCommentaryThe opening wave of robust earnings reports helped the S&P 500 surge over 10% in April. The market is being overpowered by positive earnings, with much more to come. As it turns out, five of the Magnificent Seven stocks reported last week, and their earnings announcements and guidance, thrilled Wall Street. Amazon and Google each rose on the theory that they could challenge Nvidia’s leadership, causing Nvidia to get hit with some profit-taking. I find this narrative truly ridiculous, since Amazon and Google do not make GPUs. There is no doubt Amazon and Google can team up with AMD, or some other company, to make AI devices, like a “Super Alexa,” but they are not creating regenerative AI, where computers make their own decisions, so I stand by my core evaluation of Nvidia as an effective monopoly, with no real competition in GPUs.