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Market Indices | |
At-A-Glance | |
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April 2026 | |
U.S. stocks strongly rallied in April, with investors shaking off geopolitical headwinds, rising inflation concerns, and intense oil volatility, thanks to exceptionally strong corporate earnings and robust economic growth. In a major turnaround from its March 30 near-correction low at 6,343 and down as much as 9.1%, the S&P 500 rebounded over 10%, marking its best monthly performance since November 2020 and first close above 7,200. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite surged over 15% to a new record high and strongest monthly gain since April 2020. The small-cap focused Russell 2000 also outperformed, extending its 2026 year-to-date (YTD) gain to 13.2%, well over twice the YTD gains of the major U.S. large-cap indices. The first quarter earnings season has been exceptionally strong with 63% of S&P 500 reporting companies announcing results so far with a beat rate of 83.9%, according to FactSet. To date, the blended Q/Q earnings growth rate is tracking at 28.2%, far outpacing analysts’ initial 13.1% earnings growth estimate by a 2X factor. In the 1stof 3 BEA estimates, U.S. real GDP growth expanded at a 2.0% pace in the first quarter, shy of forecasts for +2.3% while up from 4th quarter 2025 growth of 0.5%. The GDP increase was driven by expanded corporate investment, a pickup in exports, and government spending that accelerated to a 6-month high. Consumer spending was also additive, but its growth slowed to the lowest in four quarters, dampened by rising prices. The Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation measure, the core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) Price Index which excludes food and energy, rose 0.3% M/M in March, down from +0.4% in February. Year-over-year, however, the core PCE price measure is up 3.2%, the highest annualized pace since November 2023, and up from +3.0% in February. In other key economic data, the most recent tally of new first-time unemployment claims tumbled 26,000 to 189,000, the lowest level in over 56-years, dating back to 1969. Continuing claims, the sum of ongoing paid jobless benefits plus new claims, declined 23,000 to 1.785 million, the lowest since April 2024. Small cap stocks of all styles outperformed their respective Large and Mid cap peers in April and YTD, led by a near 14.7% return last month in Small cap Growth. For the year, Small cap’s leading gain switched to Value, advancing over 15%. Mid cap Growth posted the smallest April gain while for the year Mid cap Growth stocks was the sole laggard, down 0.29%. | |
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Top & Bottom Performers | |
9 of the S&P 500’s 11 major sector groups posted April gains with Communication Services and Tech stocks leading the advance while Energy and Healthcare broadly underperformed with monthly losses. Their sector performance runs parallel with their respective to-date 1st quarter earnings growth: Communication Services (+53.3%) and Technology (+49.9%) have the strongest Q1 earnings growth, while Energy (-3.3%) and Healthcare (-4.5%) are the only sectors with negative Q1 earnings growth. | |
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Foreign equities in developed markets continued trailed the U.S. in April, even as the U.S. dollar weakened by around 0.9%. The MSCI EAFE Index gained 7.45% last month, underperforming the S&P 500 by 3.0%. Emerging markets posted stronger U.S. beating gains, surging over 14.7% in April. MSCI indices for Korea (+38.2%) and Taiwan (+26.2%) gained the most. Turning to fixed-income markets, U.S. Treasury prices weakened, lifting yields between 0.08% to 0.10% across the maturity curve. The yield on benchmark 10-year T-Notes ended April at 4.389% after Federal Reserve policymakers held interest rates unchanged at 3.50%-3.75% for a third straight policy meeting. The Bloomberg U.S. Government Index fell 0.07% in April while the longer-duration Bloomberg U.S. Government Long-term Bonds Index retreated a deeper 0.68%. On a broader basis, investment-grade bonds of all types, as measured by the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index, edged 0.11% higher last month, while Bloomberg’s U.S. Corporate High Yield Bond Index, representing holdings of below investment-grade (junk-rated) bonds, outperformed with April gains of 1.69%. Bloomberg’s U.S. Municipal Bond Index gained 1.15%. | |
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This report is created by Cetera Investment Management LLC. For more insights and information from the team, follow @CeteraIM on X. |
About Cetera® Investment Management
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Disclosures
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Glossary
The Bloomberg Barclays Capital U.S. Aggregate Bond Index, is a broad based flagship benchmark that measures the investment grade, US dollar-denominated, fixed-rate taxable bond market. The index includes Treasuries, government–related and corporate debt securities, MBS (agency fixed-rate and hybrid ARM pass-throughs), ABS and CMBS (agency and non-agency) debt securities that are rated at least Baa3 by Moody’s and BBB- by S&P. Taxable municipals, including Build America bonds and a small amount of foreign bonds traded in U.S. markets are also included.
The Bloomberg Barclays US Municipal Bond Index covers the USD-denominated long-term tax exempt bond market. The index has four main sectors: state and local general obligation bonds, revenue bonds, insured bonds, and prerefunded bonds. Eligible securities must be rated investment grade (Baa3/BBB- or higher) by Moody’s and S&P and have at least one year until final maturity, but in practice the index holding have a fluctuating average life of around 12.8 years.
The Bloomberg Barclays US Corporate High Yield Index measures the USD-denominated, non-investment grade, fixed-rate, taxable corporate bond market. Securities are classified as high yield if the middle rating of Moody's, Fitch, and S&P is Ba1/BB+/BB+ or below, excluding emerging market debt. Payment-in-kind and bonds with predetermined step-up coupon provisions are also included. Eligible securities must have at least one year until final maturity, but in practice the index holdings has a fluctuating average life of around 6.3 years.
The Barclays U.S. Government Bond Index is comprised of the U.S. Treasury and U.S. Agency Indices. The index includes U.S. dollar-denominated, fixed-rate, nominal US Treasuries and US agency debentures (securities issued by US government owned or government sponsored entities, and debt explicitly guaranteed by the US government).
The Bloomberg Commodity Index is a broadly diversified index that allows investors to track commodity futures through a single, simple measure. It is composed of futures contracts on physical commodities and is designed to minimize concentration in any one commodity or sector. It currently includes 19 commodity futures in five groups. No one commodity can comprise less than 2% or more than 15% of the index, and no group can represent more than 33% of the index (as of the annual reweightings of the components).
The Cboe Volatility Index® (VIX®) is a key measure of market expectations of near-term volatility conveyed by S&P 500 stock index option prices.
The MSCI EAFE is designed to measure the equity market performance of developed markets (Europe, Australasia, Far East) excluding the U.S. and Canada. The Index is market-capitalization weighted.
The MSCI Emerging Markets is designed to measure equity market performance in global emerging markets. It is a float-adjusted market capitalization index.
The MSCI All-Country World Index (ACWI) is a market cap weighted index designed to represent performance of the full opportunity set of large- and mid-cap stocks across 23 developed and 26 emerging markets, covering more than 2,700 companies across 11 sectors and approximately 85% of the free float-adjusted market capitalization in each market.
The Russell 1000 Growth Index measures the performance of the large-cap growth segment of the U.S. equity universe. It includes those Russell 1000 Index companies with higher price-to-book ratios and higher forecasted growth values.
The Russell 1000 Value Index measures the performance of the large-cap value segment of the U.S. equity universe. It includes those Russell 1000 Index companies with lower price-to-book ratios and lower forecasted growth values.
The Russell 2000 Index measures the performance of the small-cap segment of the U.S. equity universe and is a subset of the Russell 3000 Index representing approximately 10% of the total market capitalization of that index. It includes approximately 2000 of the smallest securities based on a combination of their market cap and current index membership.
The Russell 3000 Index measures the performance of the largest 3,000 U.S. companies representing approximately 98% of the investable U.S. equity market.
The Russell Midcap Index measures the performance of the mid-cap segment of the U.S. equity universe and is a subset of the Russell 1000 Index. It includes approximately 800 of the smallest securities based on a combination of their market cap and current index membership. The Russell Midcap represents approximately 31% of the total market capitalization of the Russell 1000 companies.
The S&P BSE SENSEX Index is a free-float market-weighted index of 30 well-established and financially sound stocks on the Bombay Stock Exchange, representative of various industrial sectors of the Indian economy.
The S&P 500 is a capitalization-weighted index of 500 stocks designed to measure performance of the broad domestic economy through changes in the aggregate market value of 500 stocks representing all major industries.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is a price-weighted average of 30 significant stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ.
The NASDAQ Composite Index includes all domestic and international based common type stocks listed on The NASDAQ Stock Market. The NASDAQ Composite Index is a broad-based capitalization-weighted index.
The Shanghai Composite Index is a stock market index of all stocks (A shares and B shares) that are traded at the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
The U.S. Dollar Index is a weighted geometric mean that provides a value measure of the United States dollar relative to a basket of major foreign currencies. The index, often carrying a USDX or DXY moniker, started in March 1973, beginning with a value of the U.S. Dollar Index at 100.000. It has since reached a February 1985 high of 164.720, and has been as low as 70.698 in March 2008.
West Texas Intermediate (WTI) is a crude oil stream produced in Texas and southern Oklahoma which serves as a reference or "marker" for pricing a number of other crude streams. WTI is the underlying commodity of the New York Mercantile Exchange's oil futures contracts.