Tech Earnings Are Carrying This Market — And Retail Is Finally Starting to Notice

Here's the thing nobody at the Iran war-room screaming about oil wants to talk about: Q1 tech earnings grew 24%, and according to Deutsche Bank's macro team on Bloomberg's Odd Lots, investor positioning is still historically light — their word for it is 'buses are empty.' Translation: the rally has legs because most people aren't even on it yet.

The AI infrastructure story just got a serious earnings backbone. $DELL added 1,000 new AI factory clients in a single quarter — bringing the total to 5,000 — with names like Eli Lilly and Samsung building on-premise AI deployments. Jensen Huang told Bloomberg this isn't evaluation mode anymore; enterprises are in full production. That's the kind of revenue confirmation that turns a theme into a multi-quarter trade. Meanwhile, $STRD — sorry, wrong universe — Standard Chartered is cutting 8,000 jobs by 2030 to fund its own AI pivot, which is either visionary or a very expensive severance package, depending on your timeline.

Ed Yardeni is still holding his S&P 500 target of 8,250 even while calling for a July rate hike — which is either the most confident bull call of the year or performance art. Either way, with light positioning and real earnings growth underneath the geopolitical noise, fading the tape here feels like leaving the party right before the second wind hits.