Hand over trembling hand, the stock market climbed a wall of anxiety over the past two weeks.

The Charging Bull sculpture near the New York Stock Exchange.

As of Friday, the S&P 500 index had risennine days in a row, its longest streak since 2004. It jumped 10.2% in that span—2.9% of that in the past week—a remarkable performance given the cloud of uncertainty hanging over American businesses from President Donald Trump’s tariffs. The market has made back the entirety of its “Liberation Day” selloff.

Not to be outdone, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 3% on the week and is in the midst of a nine-day streak of its own, though it’s only its longest rally since 2023. The Nasdaq Composite was up 3.4%, but ended the week with only two consecutive gains.

Boosting stocks are signals from the White House that the president is willing to lower tariffs on major trade partners, and even make a deal with China. If the global trade war becomes a more limited tariff spat, there’s a better chance that the U.S. economy can weather the disruption.

Big Tech stocks have also been driving some of the gains, as both Meta Platforms and Microsoft posted strong earnings and reaffirmed their commitment to spend heavily on artificial intelligence this year. Both stocks jumped on the news—Microsoft gained 7.6% on Thursday, while Meta rose 4.2%—and that, in turn, helped shares of smaller AI companies and ones that are expected to supply electricity for those AI machines, like Vistra and Constellation Energy.

Software may be resilient in a trade war, but bricks and mortar look more brittle. There is a specter hanging over the market, and it keeps coming up in first-quarter earnings calls. Around a quarter of the 357 S&P 500 companies that have reported so far have mentioned the word “recession” on their calls, according to David Kostin, chief U.S. equity strategist at Goldman Sachs, up from just 2% last quarter.

Gross domestic product, which contracted 0.3% largely due to a surge in imports as companies tried to get ahead of the tariffs, would seem to suggest that those slowdown worries aren’t unfounded. And some companies, like McDonald’s, reported that they’re noticing consumers pulling back on spending due to concerns about the economic situation.

All of that has created a fog for investors, who are muddling through earnings season without a clear picture of where companies are headed. Some firms like 3M that are vulnerable to tariffs haven’t even incorporated them into their guidance yet. Others are projecting a wide range of possible results. The top of First Solar’s earnings guidance range for this year is 40% higher than the bottom. Companies will almost certainly have to outline their exposure more specifically in the months ahead, and that could cause a more dramatic market reaction. Sinking earnings expectations tend to deflate asset values, too.

“We think the rally off the lows is more a function of position capitulation than an ‘all clear’ signal for risk,” writes Greg Boutle, head U.S. equity and derivatives strategist at BNP Paribas. “Our base case is that a combination of earnings downgrades and [valuation] compression could see equities retest year-to-date lows.”

Whether the market falls back to Liberation Day levels or not, streaks aren’t meant to last. Enjoy this one while it does.