As Stocks Struggle For A Green May, Retail Earnings Again Dominate Weekly Calendar

Key Takeaways:

• After struggling most of May, markets gather strength to start final week of month
• Higher bitcoin price after volatile weekend appears to be one factor helping stocks
• Another big week of retail earnings ahead including Best Buy
  
  BBY
  , Costco, Nordstrom
  
  JWN
  , Gap
  
  GPS
  

Is this the week we escape the May doldrums?

Though the market is in a better mood so far today, Wall Street continues to struggle toward summer as earnings season winds to a close. The S&P 500 Index (SPX) just suffered its first back-to-back weekly losses since February, and the Nasdaq 100

NDAQ
(NDX), heavily weighted toward Tech, only barely missed falling five straight weeks. It managed to eke out a small gain in the week that just ended, but remains down about 4.5% from its April all-time high.

Perhaps working in the bulls’ favor is something research firm CFRA pointed out: Last week’s low of 4061 for the SPX was just slightly above the previous week’s low of 4056. From a technical point of view, it could be supportive that the older low point held, but we’ll have to wait and see. The SPX ended last week slightly lower for the month, but hasn’t had a losing month since January.

Like it or not, another item that could help determine direction this week is bitcoin (see more below). The cryptocurrency was volatile over the weekend but up slightly this morning,…