S&P 500 heads for its best month since 2020 — plus, Apple earnings on deck

the s&p 500 hit an all-time intraday high above 7,200 on thursday, and both it and the nasdaq are on track for their best months since 2020. the s&p is up more than 10% in april, the nasdaq over 15%. lower oil and bond yields helped — brent crude pulled back from war highs of $126, and the 10-year treasury yield dipped on slower-than-expected economic growth. the big four hyperscalers — alphabet, amazon, microsoft, and meta — all reported earnings on the same night, a rarity. they're now committing to spend at least $695 billion combined this year, up 14% from the prior $608 billion estimate. alphabet raised its capex guide to $180-190 billion and shares surged nearly 10%. meta also raised its range to $125-145 billion but stock fell almost 8%. amazon held at $200 billion, microsoft at roughly $190 billion. apple reports after the bell — its first earnings since tim cook said he'd step down in september, with john ternus taking over. analysts will ask about the succession, ai strategy, china sales, the new macbook neo, and whether apple plans to hike device prices to offset soaring memory costs. memory names sandisk and western digital also report tonight.