There are big weeks for the stock market, and then there’s this one. The stock market faces possibly its most important week of 2026 so far.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq head into it at record highs after a blistering tech-driven rally on Friday. That raises the already sky-high stakes.

Optimism around artificial intelligence is very much back, and the chips sector is on a generational winning streak. The PHLX Semiconductor Index, or SOX, has risen for 18 consecutive days, up around 50% over that time. Intel, Nvidia, and AMD all hit record highs.   

Five of the largest tech companies that make up the Magnificent Seven megacap stocks, will report earnings against that backdrop—Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta Platforms, Amazon, and Apple. That formidable five make up around a quarter of the S&P 500’s market value.

If that wasn’t enough, the Federal Reserve will make its latest interest-rate decision Wednesday and is expected to hold rates steady. Chair Jerome Powell will also give what’s likely to be his last press conference in charge of the central bank. The Senate Banking Committee is due to vote on advancing the confirmation of his successor Kevin Warsh that day, too.

The Fed’s preferred inflation metric, the PCE index, will be released Thursday.

That’s a long list of market-moving catalysts and doesn’t even include any potential geopolitical developments in the Iran war and the key Strait of Hormuz, a major trade route for the world’s oil.

If investors had to pick one to focus on, it should probably be Big Tech earnings. The Mag 7 group has played an influential part in the stock market’s recent rally—the Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF is up 15% in April, compared with the S&P 500’s 10%. 

Cloud growth and capex spending will be the areas to watch, the feel-good factor around AI is on the line.

—Callum Keown

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The last major obstacle to Kevin Warsh’s confirmation as Federal Reserve chair has been removed, with holdout Sen. Thom Tillis ending his threat to block it. That puts President Donald Trump’s nominee on a tight track to take over the central bank before current chair Jerome Powell’s term expires May 15.

• Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, told NBC’s Meet the Press that he will support Warsh’s confirmation, ending the standoff that had threatened to stall the nomination in the Senate Banking Committee. The committee is scheduled to vote Wednesday on advancing Warsh to a full Senate floor vote.

• The logjam broke Friday, when U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said her office was dropping the criminal probe and handing the matter to the Fed’s own inspector general, which has been investigating cost overruns from the Fed’s multibillion-dollar Washington headquarters renovation since last July.

• Tillis said Sunday he received assurances from the Justice Department that the criminal investigation wouldn’t be reopened unless the inspector general issues a criminal referral. He called Warsh, a former Fed governor, an outstanding nominee and said it’s time for the Fed to move beyond the distraction.

• The Fed will get another inflation reading this week from the personal consumption expenditures price index on Thursday. The consumer price index rose 3.3% in March from a year ago, and the PCE price index is expected to show a similar jump. 

What’s Next: The Fed’s next interest-rate decision also comes this week, and potentially Powell’s last press conference as Fed chair. Policymakers are expected to keep rates unchanged, but more important are clues about their willingness to look past rising inflation, mostly from energy prices.

—Nicole Goodkind and Dan Lam

Ahead of its plans for the largest IPO ever, Elon Musk SpaceX revealed what could be that offering’s secret weapon: the third-generation Starship designed to bring it all the capabilities it needs to take astronauts to the moon and ultimately to Mars. It could be tested as early as May.

• A lot already has been made of SpaceX’s satellite-based Wi-Fi broadband product, Starlink, and the potential for data centers in space. But its ace in the hole is this reusable rocket, standing 408 feet tall. The booster has 33 rocket engines, each producing more than 8,000 tons of thrust.

• Starship aims to cut the cost of reaching low Earth orbit by as much as 90% compared with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, which cut the cost by roughly 95% compared with the Space Shuttle. Lower costs enabled SpaceX to develop Starlink and will enable AI data centers in space.

• There have been 11 Starship tests. Some of these ended in an explosion—what SpaceX calls “rapid unscheduled disassembly.” There have been failures with the booster system, too. But progress is being made. SpaceX caught the booster with giant mechanical arms during test 5.

• SpaceX already filed confidential paperwork for its IPO and the details are starting to leak out. For example, Starlink generated Ebitda profit margins of 63% on $11.4 billion in revenue, serving some nine million customers by year’s end. SpaceX hasn’t responded to requests for comment.

What’s Next: Lower costs have morphed SpaceX into a telecom company delivering internet to millions with plans to deliver data directly to cellphones from space. The 12th Starship test is likely to happen in late May, which should be about the time SpaceX’s IPO registration becomes public and its roadshow begins.

—Al Root

The U.S. Army sergeant charged with insider trading on the prediction market site Polymarket last week was likely in violation of multiple rules before the transactions were ever made. The international prediction market it runs where the trades were allegedly placed is illegal in the U.S.

• Trades around war are also banned on U.S. marketplaces regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The Justice Department accused Gannon Van Dyke of using a virtual private network, or VPN, to make it look to Polymarket like he was logging onto the site from a foreign country.

• Van Dyke was charged with wire fraud and unlawful use of government information for personal gain in the scheme, which prosecutors said generated $400,000 in a bet on the downfall of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Polymarket is subject to know-your-customer rules, former CFTC regulators told Barron’s.

• “Polymarket cooperated with our investigation,” a spokesperson for the CFTC said in a statement to Barron’s. Polymarket didn’t respond to a request for comment. The firm has a data sharing partnership with Dow Jones, the publisher of Barron’s.

• Polymarket said on X that it referred the matter to the DOJ when it identified a user trading on classified government information and said insider trading has no place on the platform. Jeff Le Riche, an ex-CFTC lawyer, pointed to potential liability under the Commodity Exchange Act.

What’s Next: The CFTC has a history of enforcement actions against offshore operators that illegally allow U.S. customers on their platforms. In 2024, the CFTC took action against a cryptocurrency exchange called KuCoin for inadequate know-your-customer measures.

—Nick Devor

Lionsgate’s Michael, a two-hour biopic about how Michael Jackson became the King of Pop, danced its way to the top of the domestic box office, selling an estimated $97 million of tickets despite critics’ mixed reviews. The movie now ranks as the highest-grossing biopic opening of all time.

• Michael, starring Jackson’s nephew Jaafar Jackson and Colman Domingo as Joe Jackson, also notched the second-biggest domestic opening of 2026. Universal Pictures and Nintendo’s The Super Mario Galaxy Movie grossed $131.7 million in its opening weekend earlier this month, according to Comscore.

• Michael sold another $120.4 million of tickets internationally, for projected $217.4 million worldwide sales through Sunday, including $24.4 million in IMAX screens. Super Mario Galaxy sold another $21.2 million domestically, bringing its worldwide total to $831.5 million since opening April 1.

• Michael helped boost Hollywood’s weekend domestic box office to an estimated $152.5 million. So far this year, domestic ticket sales of $2.57 billion are 14.2% above this point in 2025, Comscore’s head of marketplace trends Paul Dergarabedian said.

• Members of the Writers Guild of America West and the Writers Guild of America East unions voted overwhelmingly to ratify their new four-year contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. Dergarabedian said previous writers’ strikes have profoundly hampered production schedules and film releases.