Coming off a second straight day of record closes for the S&P 500, traders are left to muse over whether stocks are butting up against resistance or forging a new path higher. The smart bet is on the latter, if the bottoming process in oil is any indication (see the chart below).

Aside from the historical trends on the crude front, we have a smattering of high-profile retail earnings, some housing data and word from the Fed later in the week that will likely go a long way in coloring the next market move. What we get might also lend some support to the idea of the pending “Great Reset” that George Mason economics professor Tyler Cowen wrote about in a post over the weekend.

“Are these economic problems transitory, or are we glimpsing the beginnings of a grimmer future?” he asks. “No one knows whether or how much of a reset may be underway. Yet I can’t help but wonder which features of current data might prove harbingers of larger, more permanent changes to come.” Check out more from Cowen in our “call” section.

In the meantime, we’re left to deal with this strangely resilient market and the light volume that continues to keep indexes crawling into uncharted territory.

An interesting trend still sticking around is that the rally this year is completely built on the first five minutes of trading. In fact, according to Jones Trading, that opening span has delivered a cumulative S&P gain of more than 4%. The total advance so far this year is at 3.1%.

Buy the close and flip the next morning has been good to short-term traders.That trend doesn’t look like it’s in place this morning. Yet, anyway.

Key market gauges

Futures on the Dow US:YMM5 and the S&P US:ESM5 are struggling and pointing to the possibility that the latter will back off its highs later. Blame yields creeping up in the U.S. and Germany this morning. Asia ADOW, +0.33% was sluggish too. Europe SXXP, -0.66% is in the red, and that’s as the euro EURUSD, +0.05% drops. Crude CLM25, is above $60, boosted by supply worries on fighting in Yemen and Iraq. Gold US:GCM5 is up slightly.

The quote

“To those of you who are graduating this afternoon with high honors, awards and distinctions, I say, ‘Well done.’ And, as I like to tell the C students: You, too, can be president.” — George W. Bush, in his commencement speech at SMU over the weekend.

The economy

The May NAHB home builder survey gets things started at 10 a.m. Eastern, but that’s about it for today. Highlights for the rest of the week include April housing starts on Tuesday and existing home sales on Thursday. Sprinkle some Fed talk in there, too. Read this week’s “Economic Preview.”

Earnings

The season might be winding down, but there are some big names in retail on tap, including Wal-Mart WMT, -1.02% , Lowe’s LOW, -2.24% and Best Buy BBY, -0.04% over the next few days. As for today’s light schedule, Urban Outfitters URBN, -3.14% and Agilent A, -0.22% report.

LeapFrog US:LF stock is getting nailed in premarket after delaying the release of quarterly results.

The buzz

Ascenta Retail US:ASNA is up 9% as a trading halt has been lifted. The company is buying retailer Ann US:ANN for $2.2 billion in cash and stock.

Endo ENDP, +0.61% is buying Par Pharmaceuticals in an $8 billion deal.

Apple AAPL, -3.17% bought GPS firm Coherent Navigation.

European banks are about to start getting hammered with Fitch downgrades, according to a report from German newspaper Handelsblatt. Watch for it to start happening today.

Alibaba BA, -3.81% has come under fresh fire from the owner of Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent and several other top luxury brands, because it says the Chinese company isn’t doing enough about the problem of counterfeit products. Kering filed a lawsuit Friday in Manhattan.

Word broke over the weekend that Apple AAPL, -3.17% acquired a GPS company called Coherent Navigation. Apple’s official comment sounds familiar: “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plan.”

The stat

The average woman between the ages of 16 and 25 spends more than five hours a week taking selfies, according to a recent survey of 2,000 women in that age group. Make it stop.

The chart

Crude dropped 54% from its high last summer to its low back in March. Now it has clawed back half of that loss. Josh Brown of the Reformed Broker blog posted this Wells Fargo chart comparing the latest bottom to four prior instances. In most cases, the rally was quite substantial, with an average rebound of 70% over the course of the following year. But even more interesting, perhaps, is what this kind of recovery has meant for the S&P. Stocks have averaged a 20% return in the year following a bottom like this. So far, the market is cooperating. Careful, though. The obvious sector would seem to be energy, but these stocks lose 4.8% on average over the same time frame.

The call

Signs of a pending economic “reset” are mounting, says Tyler Cowen in a New York Times piece over the weekend. Basically, we have to recalibrate our expectations of the economy, because the woes we’re experiencing are more than just a cyclical downturn. Cowen says that while there’s reason to be optimistic, “there is a much more disturbing possibility that could turn out to be more accurate: namely, that the recession was a learning experience that we haven’t fully absorbed.” From that perspective, he says “the radical and sudden changes of the financial crisis were early indicators of deep fragility and dysfunctionality.”

If such a reset is underway, Cowen warns that public policy won’t easily reverse it. “Once unsustainable economic structures begin to fail, it takes a significant improvement to make them viable again,” he said. “Yet because of the difficulty of making major changes under our current political alignment, most new government policies today are no more than changes at the margin.”

Random reads

A message to future dead people (h/t Elon Musk).

Wife bonuses are a real thing in Manhattan.

Rewarding a group of upstanding high-school students for their hard work ... by letting them watch “Fifty Shades of Grey.”

A grim view of Peru’s jungle

Life begins with bird poo on this new island in Japan.

ISIS is about to wage an all-out cyberwar.

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