Oil's 'scary,' 'unprecedented' week | Why isn't the stock market lower? | Latest on the coronavirus
| EDITOR'S NOTE
In this edition of Weekend Brief, we tackle two astonishing perplexities of the market: How a barrel of oil can have a negative value, and why today's stock market is worth about the same as it was last summer when there was full employment, record corporate profits and no pandemic.
Anyone old enough to remember the 1973 Arab oil embargo may find it especially difficult to imagine a barrel of oil dropping to negative $37.63. But that's what happened to May futures contracts for West Texas Intermediate crude on Monday.
CNBC's Pippa Stevens explains, blow by blow, how this anomaly happened, how it could happen again, and why next time it might go to negative $100 a barrel.
Crashing oil prices are a product of oversupply, but they are also a measure of plummeting demand and global economic decline. More than 26 million people have filed unemployment claims in the past five weeks and the course of the coronavirus pandemic that put them there remains unknowable.
Michael Santoli, CNBC's senior markets commentator, writes that even the pros on Wall Street are nonplussed about the S&P's performance amid all this terrible news, including Cantor Fitzgerald strategist Peter Cecchini.
"The equity market just isn't getting the joke," Cecchini said.
Next week will bring more challenges, writes CNBC's Patti Domm. We'll hear once again from the Federal Reserve, get a look at first-quarter gross domestic product numbers, and see millions more workers show up in the weekly jobless claims report. We'll also get earnings reports - but probably not much future earnings guidance - from 140 S&P 500 companies.
"The most important earnings story is not what happens this quarter, it's how long does it take to get back to peak earnings again," said Jonathan Golub, chief U.S. equity strategist at Credit Suisse. "My estimate is this is going to take three years to get back to peak profits."
Three years? And yet the S&P 500 is already up 29% from its low a month ago.
And don't forget to check out the new Activist Spotlight column from Ken Squire. In his second exclusive article for CNBC, he details an activist with a soft touch going after a wireless company that's lost its way.
Thanks for reading Weekend Brief. Email your thoughts to EveningBrief@nbcuni.com or follow me on Twitter @tellittoal.
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MICHAEL SANTOLI'S MARKET COLUMN
THE WEEK AHEAD
YOUR WEEKEND BRIEFING
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