🔥 Trump goes public: Another flat day for the major indexes let other narratives lead the day, like the IPO of former president Donald Trump's Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent of his social network, Truth Social. Now trading under his initials DJT, the stock surged as much as 50% before settling down to finish the day with a 16% pop. It's the second big IPO pop in two weeks, after Reddit — which has continued to rise, jumping almost 9% Tuesday.

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📈 Meme stocks are back: After providing the venue for r/WallStreetBets and the 2021 meme stock moment, Reddit's IPO has turned the forum into a meme stock in its own right. The dual pops of Trump Media and Reddit — plus GameStop's big Monday and bitcoin's $70,000 price tag — are underscoring what Interactive Brokers chief strategist Steve Sosnick called a "very exuberant market."

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🍫 $10,000 cocoa is becoming a problem: The high commodity prices for chocolate are finally coming home to roost, as chocolate futures touched $10,000 per metric ton (still seems cheap to me?). A supply deficit from both drought and lack of professionalization has spiked prices and now BNP Paribas has downgraded Hershey's stock because of it. For now, at least, these increases are unlikely to be passed on to the consumer. But if these prices are here to stay, Ozempic might not be Big Chocolate's only problem.

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😕 Consumers are less confident … about the future: The Conference Board's most recent survey showed little change in consumer confidence from February's levels. And while consumers broadly reported things seem fine today, the outlook was firmly in what is thought of as recession-signaling territory. It's diametrically opposed to signals from the stock market and the Fed's GDP projections.

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🌁 Baltimore bridge updates: We're still learning the details surrounding the container ship crash that caused the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Maryland — and the full human and economic toll. But it's clear that the bridge's collapse will profoundly affect not only the region but one of the US's most important ports.

Follow all the action throughout the day on Yahoo Finance and on the Yahoo Finance app. For the web version, click here.

🎮 GameStop shares sink amid revenue miss, job cuts.

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✈️ Boeing at risk of Moody's downgrade on cash flow concerns.

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💊 Viking Therapeutics jumps on positive weight-loss pill data.

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💻 Trump’s new social media company looks like a meme stock.

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💸 The "extreme" Social Security move that actually makes sense.

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📈 Walmart shares are on a tear, with further growth expected from the retail giant.

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🛢️ Larry Fink defends BlackRock's energy bets days after Texas dustup.

Today's Takeaway is by Jared Blikre, Markets Reporter.

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Since October, stocks have climbed the wall of worry and closed each month in the green — brushing aside concerns over inflation, recession, corporate earnings, Fed hiking, Fed easing, and the like. Barring disaster, Friday's settlement will extend this winning streak to five months.

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Over this brief period, the S&P 500 has rocketed 25% higher, leading reasonable investors to question if the market has moved too far too quickly.

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History answers resoundingly once again for those who would question the trending potential of the US stock market: Strength begets strength.

Since 1950, there have been 30 five-month streaks in the S&P 500, including the most recent one, along with another streak that ended last July. In all but two of the prior 28 cases, the S&P 500 was higher 12 months later, with an average gain of 12.5% and a 93% win rate. This compares to a 9.0% average one-year return with a 74% win rate.

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The bullish advantage decreases over shorter time frames, but, critically, it doesn't disappear.

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Looking one month out following a five-month streak, the average historical return is 1.0% with a 76% win rate — versus a 0.7% average gain and 61% win rate over all one-month periods in the last 74 years.

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And, as we've been writing, gains are increasingly broad-based, with the rally extending beyond anything tangentially related to artificial intelligence.

Investors might be surprised to learn that over the last five months, the financial sector is the best-performing large-cap sector, up 28%.

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Tech is close behind with a 27% return, followed closely by industrials, up 26%. Notwithstanding the barrage of AI headlines, large-cap industrials have notched 27 record closing highs over the last five months versus tech's 25 all-time records.

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Throw in the materials, communications, and consumer discretionary sectors, and fully six of the 11 S&P 500 sectors are up 20% or more over five months.

Our large-cap discussion here doesn't even touch on the risk-on tilt being felt elsewhere in the markets — from crypto to disruption stocks to IPOs.

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Less than one week after its initial public offering, Reddit (RDDT) has nearly doubled in price — up 91.5%. That's not nothing either.

There have been signs of risk-taking all over the market this week.

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Reddit stock (RDDT) has rallied more than 30% since its initial public offering last Thursday and has brought with it a resurgence in the meme trade.

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Bitcoin (BTC-USD) has pressed near $71,000 per coin. MicroStrategy (MSTR), a stock that more closely follows the price of bitcoin than typical fundamental drivers like earnings, is now up more than 200% year to date after a massive rally on Monday. 

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And the commodities trade is ripping too, with Gold (GC=F) up 7% in the last month and sitting near an all-time high. The price of cocoa (CC=F) has risen nearly 50% over the same time period.

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The big moves come as the broader market sits at all-time highs. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) has hit 20 all-time highs in less than three months of trading this year, putting it on pace for the most record closes in any year ever. The "straight up and to the right" nature of the benchmark's rise over the last several months — it hasn't produced a negative month since October 2023 — has had many asking if we're in a stock market bubble that's about to pop.

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Many strategists have argued the answer is no. In a research note on Monday, Deutsche Bank's equity strategy team reasoned that the $260 billion that's poured into equities since last May doesn't indicate a peak in risk appetite. Instead, it's been supported by an improving outlook for both the economy and earnings.

Using the chart above, which accounts for seasonal and cyclical flows into equities, Deutsche Bank director of global asset allocation and US equity strategy Parag Thatte told Yahoo Finance the firm hasn't seen flows data pick up purely because of risk appetite yet.

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"If flows or positioning were to get to an extreme, it becomes an issue by itself, because people could get nervous holding extended positions when we're at an extreme," Thatte said. "But because we're not yet at those levels, what we would say is that you will need some sort of a negative catalyst in order for people to pull positions back."

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— Josh Schafer, Senior Reporter

• Trump Media and Technology Group Corp. (DJT) The parent company of Truth Social, Donald Trump's social media company, surged more than 40% in its first day of trading on the Nasdaq. The company merged with special purpose vehicle Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC) in a deal approved by shareholders last week.

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• Tesla (TSLA): Shares of the EV giant jumped about 4% on Tuesday after CEO Elon Musk said US customers will be able to utilize the company's self-driving software as part of a monthlong free trial. The technology is often referred to as Full Self-Driving, or FSD.

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• Krispy Kreme (DNUT): The stock jumped nearly 30% after the company announced its national partnership with McDonald's (MCD) will be expanding. Analysts say the partnership will "unlock" value for Krispy Kreme, which began selling donuts at McDonald's locations in 2022. A nationwide rollout is slated for 2026.

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• Viking Therapeutics (VKTX): Shares soared more than 20% after the biopharmaceutical company reported positive early-phase results for its oral weight-loss drug. According to the results, the pill showed no safety issues and a majority of side effects were mild.

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— Alexandra Canal, Senior Reporter

Wednesday

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• Economic data: MBA mortgage applications, week ended March 22 (-1.6% previously)

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• Earnings: Carnival (CCL), Lands' End (LE), Cintas (CTAS), Paychex (PAYX), RH (RH), Braze (BRZE), Rumble (RUM)

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Thursday

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• Economic data: Fourth quarter GDP growth, third estimate (+3.2% annualized pace expected; +3.2% annualized pace previously); Initial jobless claims, week ended March 23 (210,000 previously); Pending home sales, February (-4.9% previously); University of Michigan consumer sentiment, March (79.4 previously); Kansas City Fed manufacturing activity, March (-4 previously)

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• Earnings: Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA)

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Friday

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• Economic data: Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, March (+0.4% expected, +0.3% previously); "Core" Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, March (+0.3% expected, +0.4% previously); Annual Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, March (+2.5% expected, +2.4% previously); Annual "Core" Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, March (+2.8% expected, +2.8% previously); Personal income, February (+0.4% expected, +1% previously); Personal spending, February (+0.5% expected, +0.2% previously); Good trade balance, February (-$89.7 billion expected, -$90.5 billion previously)

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• Earnings: Markets closed for Good Friday.