U.S. stocks kicked off the week on a positive note, with all major averages edging higher in anticipation of significant events including earnings reports from tech giants like Amazon.com Inc. AMZN on Tuesday and Apple Inc. AAPL on Thursday, a pivotal Federal Reserve Open Market Committee meeting on Wednesday, and the April’s jobs report on Friday.

The S&P 500 rose 0.2% by midday trading in New York, following a 1% surge last Friday. Both the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 and blue-chip stocks in the Dow Jones made similar gains.

Small caps, as tracked by iShares Russell 2000 ETF IWM, outperformed large-cap stocks, rising as much as 0.9%.

Tesla Inc. TSLA grabbed the market spotlight by securing a significant partnership with Chinese search engine giant Baidu Inc. BIDU, which granted the Elon Musk-led company access to its mapping license for data collection on China’s public roads.

The deal removes a last regulatory barrier for Tesla’s driver assistance system, known as Full Self-Driving (FSD), to be introduced in China. Shares of Tesla rose as much as 16% Monday.

The Bank of Japan sent shockwaves through the forex exchange market by intervening to support the value of the Japanese yen, which had plummeted to as low as 160 per dollar overnight. This action spurred a significant reversal in the USD/JPY exchange rate, plunging to as low as 155 by 1 p.m. ET.

In the commodities market, natural gas prices jumped by nearly 7% on improved demand forecasts, with the U.S. Henry Hub futures surpassing $2 per million British thermal units.

Bitcoin BTC/USD was 0.5% lower, on track to notch a six-day losing streak.

Monday’s Performance In Major U.S. Indices, ETFs

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY rose 0.3% to $509.73, the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average DIA rose 0.3% to $383.49 and the tech-heavy Invesco QQQ Trust QQQ inched 0.2% up to $432.31, according to Benzinga Pro data. 

Sector-wise, the Consumer Discretionary Select Sector SPDR Fund XLY outperformed, up 2.3%, followed by the Utilities Select Sector SPDR Fund XLU, up 1.5%. The Communication Services Select Sector SPDR Fund XLC was the major laggard, down 1%.

Monday’s Stock Movers

• Lithium miners rallied on strong EV momentum, with Arcadium Lithium plc ALTM, Piedmont Lithium Inc. PLLTL and Albemarle Corporation ALB up 16%, 10% and 7%, respectively.
• AMC International Holdings Inc. AMC fell 10.8% on weaker first-quarter preliminary results.
• SoFi Technologies Inc. SOFI fell 10% as second-quarter revenue guidance missed Street’s forecasts.
• Other stocks reacting to earnings were ON Semiconductor Corp. ON up 3.3%, Dominos Pizza Inc. DPZ up 6%, Revvity Inc. RVTY up 3.8%, Franklin Resources Inc. BEN down over 6%,
• Deciphera Pharmaceuticals, Inc. DCPH saw its shares soar by 73% to $25.36 following the announcement of its acquisition by ONO Pharmaceutical for $25.60 per share in cash.
• Soleno Therapeutics, Inc. SLNO witnessed a 31.1% surge in its shares to $49.66 after the company revealed it had been granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation from the FDA for DCCR extended-release tablets in the treatment of Prader-Willi Syndrome.
• Notable names reporting after the close are F5, Inc. FFIV, Everest Group, Ltd. EG, NXP Semiconductors N.V. NXPI, Lattice Semiconductor Corp. LSCC, MicroStrategy Inc MSTR, Paramount Global PARAPARAA, Qiagen NV QGEN, Rambus Inc. RMBS, Sanmina Corp SANM and Yum China Holdings, Inc. YUMC.

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