MARKET RECAP
📈 Markets End 4th Week in the Green As Trump Extends Iran Ceasefire “Indefinitely”

🟢 The markets wrapped up their 4th green week in a row just in time for earnings season. Across the indexes:

• The S&P 500 rose +0.55%

• The Nasdaq 100 rose +2.37%

• The TSX fell -1.29%

🗞️ The biggest stories this week were Apple’s CEO Tim Cook stepping down, Intel ($INTC) soaring 24% as earnings continue to prove a successful turnaround, and Tesla/UnitedHealth’s earnings.

🇮🇷 But before we dive into all that, let me give the super quick tldr of the latest in the Iran-US war, since that’s become such a driving force of the markets.

🕊️ An “Indefinite” Ceasefire

✈️ Overall, not too much changed this week on the war front. On Tuesday, Trump announced an extension to the Iran ceasefire until Iran submits a “unified proposal” to end the war. In response, a U.S. envoy was planned for Pakistan to restart peace talks, but early Saturday morning Trump canceled the trip, saying there was “too much time wasted on traveling.”

⚓ As of now, there’s no active negotiation happening. The Strait of Hormuz is still effectively closed, with ships being fired on and seized, and the double blockade (the US Navy blocking Iranian ports and Iran blocking the Persian Gulf) remains in place.

🤔 Despite that, based on the recent gains, the market seems confident that a deal will be reached soon, but a lot of uncertainty still remains.

🍎 Tim Cook Steps Down As Apple CEO

😮 While the war sits in limbo, another massive headline grabbed investors’ attention this week: Tim Cook is officially stepping down from Apple.

🏆 Cook has been Apple’s CEO for nearly 15 years, growing it from a $350 billion market cap company to $4 trillion, quadrupling annual revenue from $100 billion to $400+ billion over his tenure, and overseeing product launches from AirPods to Vision Pro.

👨‍💼 His replacement is a man named John Ternus (formerly Apple’s Senior VP of Hardware Engineering), which says a lot about the direction Apple is taking in the AI race.

✉️ In his letter to shareholders, Tim called it “the greatest privilege of my life to be the CEO of Apple,” and described John Ternus as a “brilliant engineer and a thinker” who is the perfect person to succeed him in the job.

📉📈 Apple ($AAPL) shares dipped about 3% following the announcement, but fully recovered within a day and ended the week with little movement (+0.18%)

🤖 John’s Biggest Challenge: Apple’s AI Strategy

😬 While there’s a lot of optimism around John’s promotion, the new CEO is inheriting a big challenge.

🐢 Despite being the world's 3rd most valuable company, many see Apple as falling behind in the AI race.

🤖 "Full Conversational Siri" was expected in early 2025, but it was delayed, and delayed again until Apple decided to instead partner with Google and pay $1B per year to power Siri with Gemini, meaning Apple's flagship AI feature will run on a competitor's model.

📅 Now, the new and improved Siri (powered by Gemini) is expected to launch with iOS 27 and iPhone 18 in September 2026, John’s first month as CEO.

😬 But expectations are very high, and amid all of the rapid innovations from OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, and other players, John needs the AI launch to be a homerun.

👀 What John As CEO Means for Apple

📲 But a ‘new Siri’ isn’t where most analysts see the big opportunity for Apple. Apple’s strength has always been hardware, and promoting John (Apple’s Senior VP of Hardware Engineering) is a big sign of where Apple is placing its focus.

⭐️ Many analysts think Apple’s future is in AI-enabled hardware. Or as CNBC puts it, “some combination of wearables, robotics, spatial computing, or possibly something Apple hasn’t shown yet.”

👓 Reports show Apple is accelerating development of three AI wearables built around AI (smart glasses, an “AI” pendant, and AirPods with cameras), trying to answer ‘what comes after the iPhone’:

📱 According to rumors, a foldable iPhone is also expected later this year, with one commentator calling it “the most consequential hardware moment in years.”

⏰ But whether it’s Siri, a folding iPhone, or something else, one thing is for sure: investors are growing impatient with Apple’s AI strategy, and the clock is ticking. John has big shoes to fill and will need to set a clear and confident AI direction to keep Apple in its place as the 3rd most valuable company in the world…

😎 Next up, let’s talk about Intel’s massive 24% stock jump this week, but first, a quick word from this week’s sponsor, Aura ETFs!

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BIG TECH EARNINGS
🚀 Intel Surges 24% After Earnings Show Successful Turnaround

📅 On Thursday, Intel ($INTC), one of the market’s biggest turnaround bets, officially reported its Q1 FY 2026 earnings, shattering expectations.

📊 By the numbers:

• ✅ Revenue hit $13.6 billion vs. $12.4 billion expected, up 7% year-over-year

• ✅ Earnings per share (Non-GAAP) hit $0.29 vs. $0.01 expected, up 123% year-over-year

📈 Intel shares surged over 24% the day after the results (its best day since 1987), and are now up 110% year-to-date.

🔭 For Q2, Intel is estimating $13.8 to $14.8 billion in revenue (also well above analyst expectations of $13.07 billion).

🤩 An Incredible Turnaround

🧐 To understand how incredible these results truly are, you have to remember where Intel was just over a year ago.

😬 Back in early 2025, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger was ousted and replaced by Lip-Bu Tan to lead the company, entering with a promise to shift Intel into something better:

🤔As a quick refresher, Intel spent most of the last decade getting lapped by the competition. Once the undisputed king of chips, controlling over 80% of the CPU market in the 2010s, Intel missed two massive technological shifts: first smartphones, then GPUs (the chips that now power all of AI).

💰 While Nvidia was printing money with GPUs and AMD was stealing market share in chip design, Intel was burning through cash trying to catch up, falling so far behind that analysts were openly debating whether Intel should split its chip design business from its manufacturing arm entirely.

📉 The stock hit a low of ~$19 in late 2024, down over 60% from its highs, and CEO Pat Gelsinger was ousted mid-freefall.

🔧 When Tan joined, he decided not to break apart the company, and instead launched a sweeping restructuring that cut approximately 22,000 jobs and spun off unneeded assets, with the company refocusing its efforts into two main businesses: Intel Products (CPUs, AI PCs, etc) and Intel Foundry (chip manufacturing; fabs).

🎯 Tan's bet was that Intel's real advantage was being the only Western company capable of both designing and manufacturing leading-edge chips, and that it could become the only viable alternative to Taiwan’s TSMC ($TSM), which carries a lot of geopolitical risk with China-Taiwan and China-US tensions.

👏 And since Tan took the helm, the results have been promising:

• The government invested $8.9B in Intel, proving the push for US chip manufacturing

• Nvidia committed $5 billion to manufacture chips through Intel Foundry

• Google committed to using Intel's CPU for AI workloads in its data centers

• Intel landed Tesla as a foundry customer this quarter, with Tesla planning to use Intel's next-gen 14A process to produce chips for its vehicles and robots

• Data center revenue grew 22% year-over-year to $5.1B, proof that Intel is finally competing in AI infrastructure

• And last but not least, Q1 2026 was Intel's 6th consecutive quarter beating expectations

🤔 Still Plenty Left to Prove

⚠️ Now, while Intel is on an impressive turnaround trajectory, it still has a lot to prove.

• 💸 First, Intel Foundry is currently losing money ($10.3 billion in losses in 2025), and it isn't expected to break even until 2027.

• 🥊 Second, TSMC still controls well over 60% of the global foundry market. Intel has to prove it can win at scale.

• 📊 Third, and perhaps most importantly for investors right now: the stock may have already run too far, too fast.

💸 After surging 24% on Thursday, Intel trades at a forward P/E ratio of over 150x, more than 10x its own historical average, and about 6x higher than Nvidia, with many saying that the ‘successful turnaround story’ may already be fully priced into the valuation.

🥳 So given the rich valuation Intel is certainly not a ‘for sure buy’ (with the average analyst on TipRanks rating it a ‘Hold’), but to those who bought Intel early on and believed in the turnaround from day 1, hats off to you!

BLOSSOMCON 2026
📣 Blossom is going back on tour!

Your fave investing community is hitting the road again!

BlossomCon 2026 is coming to Toronto, Vancouver, and New York City, and and this year is going to be one for the books. 🎉

Whether you're a seasoned investor or just getting started, BlossomCon is where North America's largest DIY investing community comes together IRL.

Live panels, candid conversations, and the kind of energy you just can't get from a screen. Last year's events sold out fast, and this year is shaping up to be bigger and better than ever. 🔥

Tickets go on sale April 30th (just 4 days away!) Move fast to lock in early bird pricing before it's gone.

We can't wait to see you there! 🤩

FROM THE BLOSSOM COMMUNITY
⭐️ Top Discussions of the Week

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