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This week’s highlights:

• Weekly Market Update: Tech Stocks Surge Again, Leading Market up 4.64%
• Low-Volatility Stocks Are Back in Style
• Will US Treasury Bond Yields Stay High?
• Why the Fed’s Independence Matters to Markets, the Economy, and Your Wallet
• Going Into Earnings, Is Apple Stock a Buy, a Sell, or Fairly Valued?

Stocks have had a decent bounce back from the brink of a bear market. Whether there really is reason for the optimism in the stock market about potential for an easing of the trade war with China is in question, but it did lead to a massive rally in tech stocks. As we highlight in our weekly markets update, tech stocks jumped nearly more than 7% this week. Demonstrating how volatile the markets have been, that gain makes this only the second-best week for tech this month, behind the nearly 9% rise after a 90-day pause was put on many tariffs. Before that, you have to go back to late 2022 for a better week.

Of course, given the way the market is trading, it could just as easily give all that back. In this environment, we’ve seen more investors favoring names that had been out of fashion during the big growth-stock rallies in 2023 and 2024. Morningstar Indexes strategist Dan Lefkovitz looks at the low-volatility stocks that have come back in vogue in 2025.

The bond market was a bit calmer this past week, apparently in response to President Trump backing away from his talk about firing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. The yield on the US Treasury 10-year note has fallen back to where it was a month ago, but given the widespread belief that a recession is on its way (if it isn’t already here), an argument can be made that yields should be lower than they are. Gabe Alpert spoke to some top bond fund managers for their thoughts on why yields are elevated and where they could go from here.

And while Trump says Powell’s job is safe, check out Sarah Hansen’s explanation of why Fed independence matters to the economy and your wallet.

Meanwhile, it’s earnings season out there. It’s quite the muddy picture, thanks to Trump’s tariffs and a weakening economy. Some companies are feeling the pinch, like Kimberly-Clark, PepsiCo, and Dow. Of course, valuations matter, and in the case of Alphabet, Morningstar’s Malik Ahmed Khan thinks the stock is so undervalued that the current price more than accounts for an advertising slowdown. Next week, we’ve got some big names reporting earnings, including Microsoft and Apple.

As always, be sure to visit our Markets page for our latest coverage and live stock market updates, along with our weekly calendar of key upcoming data and events.