What happened this week

Monday morning stock futures are largely unchanged as the markets anticipate another week of quarterly earnings. Last week Wells Fargo and Bank of America beat expectations despite recession fears and uncertainties in the banking sector.

Despite many market pessimists expecting a heavy earnings season; 90% of companies who reported in the first week topped EPS estimates. This week financial Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley report as well as Tesla, IBM and Netflix. Both M&T Bank and Charles Schwab beat profit estimates on market open. 

In a CBS interwiew, Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai warned that “every product of every company” will be impacted by the quick development of AI and that “we need to adapt as a society for it,”. Scott Pellet of “60 minutes” commented that he was left “speechless’ and felt the new technologies left him feeling “unsettled”; Pelley also seemed concerned when Pichai said there is “a black box” with chatbots, where “you don’t fully understand” why or how it comes up with certain responses.

“You don’t fully understand how it works and yet you’ve turned it loose on society?” Pelley asked. The explosion of AI technology has lead to a number of academics, including Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak, to call off an immediate pause in training and experiments. 

Merck & Co said on Sunday it will buy Prometheus Biosciences Inc for about $10.8 billion, picking up a promising experimental treatment for ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease and building up its presence in immunology.

Looking ahead to this week:

Mon April 17: Home Builder Confidence Index

Tues April 18: Housing Starts

Wed April 19: Fed Beige Book

Thurs April 20: Initial Jobless Claims, Existing Home Sales

Fri April 21: US Service PMI