Morning Brief: Ceasefire extended

Oil prices jumped as the S&P 500 (^GSPC), the Dow (^DJI), and the Nasdaq (^IXIC) all slid 0.6%.

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But just after the closing bell, President Trump said he would extend the expiring ceasefire until Iran submits a new proposal for peace. Indefinitely, it seems, as the president's social media post did not include a date.

On the agenda this morning:

🪑 Warsh in the hot seat

🍎 7 big challenges for Apple's new CEO

🎲 Warsh's odds

🎢 Goldman Sachs sees a rough time ahead for consumers — but a good time for stocks

📸 Yes, that's who you think it is

💼 Some good labor market news

⚛️ Finally, a fusion reactor is happening in the US

📆 What we're watching Wednesday: Tesla opens its books today, kicking off Big Tech quarterly results. The company's had a wild year so far, and we're looking for updates on robotaxis, cheaper EVs, and much more (preview here).

We'll also get plenty of other corporate results, from GE Vernova (GEV) to ServiceNow (NOW) (a SAASpocalypse update, perhaps).

It was a zesty 2.5 hours filled with tough questions and tense moments, but, ultimately, few surprises given that he had telegraphed his positions in his opening statement the day before.

Warsh pledged to keep the Fed independent and said “the president never once asked me to commit to any particular interest rate decision, period, and nor would I ever agree to do so if he had, but he never did."

But he didn't go far enough for Senate Democrats, declining to say who won the 2020 election, failing to name any Trump economic agenda item he disagreed with, and not taking a position on the efforts to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook or the Powell criminal probe.

Warsh did have plenty to say about how he wants to reform the Fed, casting mostly indirect criticism toward the man occupying the chair. With most of the Fed holding Powell in high esteem, one wonders how the comments landed inside the central bank.

With Warsh generally having a solid reputation, the confirmation would likely be a rubber-stamping with a party-line vote. But with Senator Thom Tillis (R- N.C.) blocking the confirmation until the unprecedented investigation of Powell goes away, the proceedings came with a sense of futility.

Something to watch for, however, is whether a face-saving off-ramp for the investigation will materialize.

Warsh's broad Republican support means he will succeed Jerome Powell as Fed chair.

The big question is, however, when.

With futures markets largely representing the Fed as a whole since the chair alone doesn't set rates, we're keeping an eye on prediction markets, which show only a 1-in-3 chance of confirmation before Powell's term is up.

(Disclosure: Yahoo Finance has a partnership with Polymarket.)

🍎 7 big challenges for Apple's new CEO

Investors are thinking hard about John Ternus, Apple's incoming CEO. Both about who he is and what his promotion means, but also what lies ahead of him and the company.

Our Executive Editor Brian Sozzi wrote a list of seven key challenges:

1. Make Apple AI relevant.

Ternus will get a head start on this from Cook, but he needs to build on it and be unafraid to ink other partnerships. Apple and Google (GOOG) recently entered a multiyear partnership to integrate a custom version of the Gemini AI model as the new foundation for Siri and Apple Intelligence. This collaboration is worth an estimated $1 billion annually.

2. Set Apple up for life after the iPhone.

OpenAI officially acquired Jony Ive’s AI hardware startup, io Products, Inc., in May 2025 for approximately $6.5 billion to form its internal devices division. Despite recent shifts in focus, OpenAI (OPAI.PVT) is still expected to release its first piece of hardware with an eye toward challenging the iPhone this year. Ternus has to use his extensive hardware knowledge to think about what life after the iPhone looks like — and it needs to be more than the foldable device rumored to debut later this year.

3. Reset the size of the Apple workforce in the age of AI, like others in Big Tech.

Big Tech players from Oracle (ORCL) to Amazon (AMZN) to Meta (META) are firing people en masse amid pushes to adopt AI workflows. As is customary with a new CEO, Ternus may want to use his new position to resize Apple's workforce and reallocate those savings to growth investments or shareholder-friendly actions. Doing so would give Ternus an early win with shareholders and Wall Street, even though the headlines wouldn't look good. Apple is estimated to have 80,000 workers in the US and more than 160,000 globally.

4. Decide if Apple wants to put more gas on content ambitions to challenge Amazon and Netflix — or pull back.

Apple has spent an estimated $25 billion to $30 billion on original content for Apple TV+ since its 2019 debut. That's a lot of money for not a lot of hits, other than, say, The Morning Show with Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon and the F1 movie with Brad Pitt. Ternus has to figure out if Apple wants to go all in on content like Netflix (NFLX) and Amazon (AMZN).

🎢 Goldman Sachs sees a rough time ahead for consumers — but a good time for stocks

As a Goldman Sachs strategist warned that consumers may be facing a tough few months ahead, another projected stocks ripping higher to the end of the year.

Ben Snider wrote that the recent highs were a hint of what's to come, projecting that the S&P 500 will rise 7% to year's end, finishing at 7,600.

This would be in line with many of the price targets we saw at the end of last year.

On the other side of the house, Goldman's Ronnie Walker noted that the expectation of a solid year of consumer spending has had a stick thrown into its spokes. Now, the strategist wrote, "we expect weak real consumption growth over the coming month" as higher gas prices do their damage.

The big question we have: Will we see Main Street and Wall Street converge — or will we see the wealthy top of the K-shaped economy save corporate America's bacon once again?

"We can’t say it enough, but Apple cannot watch the AI era from the sidelines as this fourth Industrial Revolution takes hold."

— Wedbush's Dan Ives, on John Ternus's path ahead

📸 Yes, that's who you think it is

The sports and finance social media universes were somewhat thrown by the sight of NFL Hall of Famer Larry Fitzgerald, the former Arizona Cardinal wide receiver, sitting behind Kevin Warsh.

Apparently, they're friends.

💼 Some good labor market news

Yesterday, we wrote about poor labor market sentiment from the New York Fed. Low satisfaction with pay, but little appetite to seek new jobs — something that we've also been seeing in the quit rate.

But some surprising survey data came in countering that narrative, or at least part of it.

ADP data showed that worker sentiment actually went up in April, reversing seven straight months of declines largely thanks to the healthcare industry.

This doesn't refute the bad sentiment narrative, but rather provides an update since this is April data — not the delayed versions we've seen from the JOLTS data or the New York Fed's.

We'll be looking at the April versions of those releases to see if ADP's trend gets any confirmation.

Of the two most famous nuclear reactions, only one has made our lightbulbs illuminate.

Nuclear fission needs substantial quantities of uranium, which is expensive to mine and dangerous, has been successfully harnessed for years.

But fusion, which powers the sun, has yet to be used for anything but bombs.

Commercial viability of fusion, which releases energy when hydrogen isotopes collide under heat and pressure, has long been a clean-energy dream since it's potentially much safer without nuclear waste.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems CEO Bob Mumgaard announced that the company's demonstration fusion machine will start in 2027. If and when that works, the company will start the first commercial plant in Virginia.

Economic data: MBA mortgage applications, week ended April 17 (+1.8% previously)

Earnings calendar: Tesla (TSLA), Lam Research (LRCX), GE Vernova (GEV), Philip Morris (PM), IBM (IBM), Texas Instruments (TXN), AT&T (T), Boeing (BA), Verity Holdings (VRT), CME Group (CME), ServiceNow (NOW), Boston Scientific (BSX), Moody's Corporation (MCO), CSX Corporation (CSX), Kinder Morgan (KMI), Elevance Health (ELV), TE Connectivity (TEL), United Rentals (URI), Westinghouse (WAB), Waste Connections (WCN), Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS), Otis Worldwide Corporation (OTIS), Raymond James Financial (RJF)

Thursday

Economic data: Chicago Fed national activity index, March (-0.11 previously); Initial jobless claims, week ended April 18 (+210,000 expected, +207,000 previously); Continuing claims, week ended April 11 (1.82 million previously); S&P Global US manufacturing PMI, April preliminary reading (52.8 expected, 52.3 previously); S&P Global US services PMI, April preliminary reading (50 expected, 49.8 previously); S&P Global US composite PMI, April preliminary reading (50.3 previously); Kansas City Fed manufacturing activity, April (11 previously)

Earnings calendar: Intel (INTC), American Express (AXP), SAP (SAP), Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO), NextEra Energy (NEE), Gilead Sciences (GILD), Blackstone (BX), Southern Copper (SCCO), Union Pacific (UNP), Honeywell International (HON), Lockheed Martin (LMT), Newmont (NEM), Sanofi (SNY), Comcast (CMCSA), Freeport-McMoran (FCX), Vale S.A. (VALE), Digital Realty Trust (DLR), Baker Hughes (BKR), Infosys (INFY), Nasdaq, Inc (NDAQ), CBRE Group (CBRE)

Friday

Economic data: University of Michigan sentiment, April final reading (48.3 expected, 47.6 previously); U. Mich. current conditions, April final reading (50.1 previously); U. Mich. expectations, April final reading (46.1 previously); U. Mich. 1-year inflation, April final reading (+4.8% previously); U. Mich. 5-10 year inflation, April final reading (+3.4% previously); Kansas City Fed services activity, April (15 previously)

Earnings calendar: Procter & Gamble (PG), HCA Healthcare (HCA), Eni S.p.A. (E), SLB (SLB), Norfolk Southern (NSC), Charter Communications (CHTR), Nomura Holdings (NMR), Flagstar Bank (FLG)