The S&P 500 and Nasdaq kept their record rallies going. Here are 3 key takeaways

the s&p 500 and nasdaq both closed at record highs three times last week — monday, thursday, and friday. the s&p gained 0.9% for the week, the nasdaq 1.1%. it was the fifth straight week of gains for both. april was their best month since 2020. the dow managed only 0.55% for the week, and all of that came on thursday. oil prices spiked on middle east tensions — brent hit a four-year high thursday — but it didn't knock stocks off their record path. the big story was earnings. meta, microsoft, alphabet, and amazon all reported on wednesday night. all four beat on revenue and profit, but market reactions varied wildly. alphabet jumped nearly 10% after showing google cloud revenue up 63% and operating income tripling. amazon gained modestly but delivered its highest operating margin ever. microsoft fell nearly 4% on concerns about its office business. meta plunged 8.55% after raising its capex outlook by $10 billion. apple reported thursday night and shares rose 3% friday, now about $6 from its all-time high. the fed left rates unchanged wednesday. powell said "growth is really solid" and consumer spending is "hanging in pretty well." visa and mastercard both echoed that — visa's cfo cited "resilience in consumer spending." weekly jobless claims hit their lowest since 1969. first-quarter gdp came in at 2%, below the 2.2% expected but still up from 0.5% in q4 2025.