Episode
Why Stocks Keep Rallying
- Podcast
- Thoughts on the Market
- Published
- May 4, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 293
- Processing state
not_requested
Actions
POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/thoughts-on-the-market-980853/episodes/why-stocks-keep-rallying/transcription-requests
Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/thoughts-on-the-market-980853/why-stocks-keep-rallying.md
Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.
Summary
Our CIO and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist Mike Wilson explains the factors behind stock gains across sectors. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript ----- Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanley’s CIO and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist. Today on the podcast I’ll be discussing why earnings remain the most important variable for equity markets. It's Monday, May 4th at 2pm in New York. So, let’s get after it. The more I think about what’s been driving this market, and the more time I spend with the data, the more I keep coming back to the same conclusion: it’s earnings. Not the headlines, not even the Fed. Earnings are doing the heavy lifting right now. When I look at this reporting season, what stands out isn’t just resilience, it’s strength that’s broader than most people appreciate. The typical company in the S&P 500 is growing earnings at about 16 percent, and the median earnings surprise is running around 6 percent. That’s the strongest we’ve seen in four years. What’s really interesting to me is that this strength is no longer confined to just the biggest tech names. Yes, hyper scalers and semiconductors are still playing a leading role, but the story is expanding. We’re seeing earnings revisions move higher across Financials, Industrials, and Consumer Cyclicals, in particular. That kind of breadth tells me this isn’t just a narrow leadership story; it’s something more sustainable. At the same time, many investors are focused on the geopolitical backdrop, particularly the Iran conflict and what it means for oil, inflation, and supply chains. To be fair, companies are feeling some of that pressure. When you listen to earnings calls, you hear about rising freight costs, tighter…