Stock Market Live May 5: Will Warren Buffett Tank the S&P 500 (VOO) Today?

Well, the S&P 500 gave it the ol’ college try, but ultimately came up short. After nine straight days of up markets, a 20-year record, the index finally closed lower on Monday, down 0.6%.

The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF fell a similar 0.5%.

President Trump famously thinks other countries’ tariffs on US imports are too high. Now, Bloomberg is reporting that the government of India agrees — and is offering the US a reciprocal tariff rate of 0% on steel, auto parts, and pharmaceuticals.

Stock indices in the afternoon are inching higher on the news. The S&P 500 is now down only 0.3%, and the Voo ETF is down 0.2%.

In world news that could have economic implications, the Israeli Cabinet is reported to approve a plan to “capture” all of Gaza and reoccupy the land of 2.1 million Palestinians — for how long was not said. Israel previously occupied the territory from 1967 through 2005, at which time Israel pulled all of its troops and resettled approximately 9,000 of its citizens out of the area in a bid to establish peace in the territory.

That effort 20 years ago didn’t work out well. But a reoccupation is likely to further inflame sentiment in the region, and stoke increased conflict, with continued negative implications for sea-going traffic transiting the Suez Canal.

More than 5 million borrowers of student loans are currently in default in the U.S., and President Trump wants them to pay up. On Monday, the U.S. Department of Education said it will resume collecting on defaulted student loans, including by placing liens on tax refund checks, paychecks, and Social Security retirement and disability payments.

The likely effect? Billions of dollars vacuumed away from consumer spending (i.e. lower GDP growth), but on the plus side, billions of dollars added to government bank accounts, which could help reduce the budget deficit.

The S&P is still down 0.4%, and the Voo down 0.3%.

As the S&P 500 looks to end its historic, first-time-in-20-years streak of 9 consecutive “up” days, the OPEC+ cartel of oil-producing nations says it may increase oil output by 411,000 barrels per day beginning in June.

Oil prices were already down 9% over the past couple of weeks. An increase in production (i.e. an increase in supply) is likely to push oil prices down even further, lowering global inflation but doing nothing good for the profits of oil stocks.

The S&P is currently down 0.4%, and the Voo is still down 0.3%.