Five things you need to know

• The bulls are back. The S&P 500 is set for a ninth day of gains, its longest winning run since 2004. Bitcoin nears $100,000. Meanwhile, gold has fallen below $3,300 an ounce and heading for the first back-to-back weekly loss this year. 
• It’s jobs day. The data will provide the first look at the labor market since the US imposed sweeping punitive tariffs. Nonfarm payroll growth probably decelerated to 138,000 last month after blowing away expectations in March, estimates show. 
• China said it’s evaluating the possibility of trade talks with the US, signaling the stalemate between the world’s two largest economies could shift.
• Meanwhile, Japan’s Finance Minister said its US Treasury holdings could be a card in trade talks. While the comments were made in response to a question and don’t appear to suggest Japan is considering sales, they stand out because officials in Tokyo have typically been very guarded in their remarks on Treasuries. 
• Apple slid 3.5% in early trading. It warned tariffs will increase costs this quarter and reported falling China sales. Amazon.com shares fall 2.3% after saying it’s bracing for a tougher business climate and gave a weaker-than-expected outlook for operating income. 

Buffett’s favorite valuation metric 

A key valuation metric touted by legendary investor Warren Buffett is signaling that equities are relatively cheap, bolstering the case that the sizzling rebound in US stocks has room to run.

The “Buffett Indicator” measures the ratio of the total value of the US stock market via the Wilshire 5000 Index divided by the dollar value of US gross domestic product. It stands at its lowest level since early September — even after a bounce that has sent stocks screaming higher in recent weeks.

The 94-year-old chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, which will hold its annual meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, this weekend, has said the “single best measure of where valuations stand” was the ratio of the value of US publicly traded companies to the country’s GDP.

The indicator blared a warning late last year when it shot to a historic high, echoing similar signals sent during market peaks in 2021 and before the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2000. 

The measure is now at 180%, around where it stood after an unwind of the Japanese yen carry trade sparked a brief but intense selloff last year. That stock-market rout cleared the path for a powerful S&P 500 rally in the closing months of 2024. —Jessica Menton

On the move

• Reddit rises 8.6% after saying revenue will be better than estimates, a sign that a broader dip in the economy hasn’t yet dented the digital advertising industry.  

• Airbnb slides 4.9%. It gave a weak outlook and followed online travel peer Booking in blaming economic uncertainty for softer travel demand.  

• Block sinks 23%. The digital-payments company led by Jack Dorsey lowered its full-year profit guidance as a result of a more challenging macroeconomic environment. 

• Roku slips 5.3% on an outlook that was below expectation. It plans to buy subscription streaming service Frndly TV for $185 million in cash. 

• While tech stocks have been roiled by tariff concerns, Netflix has been hitting all-time highs. The video-streaming giant has risen for a tenth consecutive session — its longest-ever winning streak — after reporting record profit. 

  

• Chevron, Exxon Mobil, DuPont, Cigna and Wendy's report earnings before the opening bell. —Subrat Patnaik 

Retail vanguard

The world’s biggest exchange-traded fund just got its strongest endorsement yet.

The $608 billion Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (ticker VOO) saw a nearly $21 billion inflow last month, the most in its 15-year history and the fifth largest amount ever taken in by a fund on a monthly basis, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence.

VOO’s rock-bottom management fee of 0.03% has made it a hit, with retail traders in particular, and its ticker has become something of a shorthand among market analysts for talking about flows from do-it-yourself investors. 

“The fact that VOO is seeing record flows in the face of a volatile market is a real testament to the amount of retail buying,” said Bloomberg Intelligence’s Athanasios Psarofagis. —Vildana Hajric

Derby outsiders

Longshots are typically a sucker bet at the racetrack. The dollar-and-a-dream mentality lures a lot of novice gamblers into ill-advised wagers.

But in the Kentucky Derby, longshots are a money-minting machine. If you had blindly bet on every horse that offered odds of 30-1 or more in the 25 runnings of the Derby this century, you’d have turned a profit of 44%. Raise the cutoff to horses with odds of 50-1 or more and the ROI skyrockets to 341%.

Why? Because the Derby is a chaotic race that often produces random outcomes. The massive crowd — 150,000 people or so in a typical year — throws some of the skittish, young colts off their game. The 1 1/4-mile distance is a great unknown. None of these horses has ever raced this far.

And then there’s the sheer number of horses in the race: 20. That’s about double the number in a typical race. Traffic jams, collisions and suicidal speed duels scramble the race so much that anything can happen. In the past six years alone, there have been 65-1 and 80-1 winners.

Rich Strike, an 80-1 longshot, winning the Kentucky Derby in 2022. Photographer: Jamie Squire/Getty Images North America

The Derby is scheduled to go off at 6:57 p.m. in Louisville on Saturday. And the favorite, it should be noted, has a very popular name in the newsroom: Journalism. —David Papadopoulos

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