wall street bears can growl all they want but main street investors are increasingly tuning them out as the sp 500 spx and nasdaq comp kicked off a big datafed week by hitting the highest levels in more than a year and ahead of looming inflation data that could sway the fed’s wednesday decision and potentially disrupt the stock market’s momentum tech futures are leading the way higher that indicates investors aren’t too worried about a cpi surprise sparking a largely unexpected fed rate hike gains for a handful of big stocks chiefly the tech godfathers have been powering this market higher among those apple shares aapl rose 28 on monday to finish at a new alltime closing high of 18379 as its market cap hits 289 trillion the closest second is microsoft at 246 trillion how big is that that brings us to our call of the day from ubs analysts who have joined the wall street minority in taking a bearish view on apple as they warn that a weaker economy will come to bear on its important iphone sales “soft demand trends and a 50 premium to the mkt market  unfavorable riskreward” said a ubs team led by david vogt which downgraded apple to neutral from buy they nudged up their price target on the tech giant to 190 per share from 180 with a caveat “if apple shares were to trade at our 190 target total shareholder return price appreciation and dividends less than 5 is insufficient in our view to maintain a buy rating given softer fundamentals” that recently unveiled 3500 headset doesn’t get a mention here as they zero in on the iphone their latest smartphones survey showed 12month purchase plans for the popular cellphone had softened over the past six months they expect “at least” a 1 to 2 drop in iphone unit growth or phones sold in the second half of 2023 with mac revenue down 3 to 5 while emerging market growth is encouraging the us china and europe represented around 70 of iphone demand for the march quarter from 72 last year as sellthrough for those regions fell 75 annually noted ubs iphone sales in the rest of the world including emerging markets and japan fell 24 in the march quarter while the important india market represented just 3 of sales for that quarter a 34 rise annually “as such we do not believe the unit tam total addressable market and growth outside of the three largest markets is large enough to drive longterm sustainable iphone growth above midsingle digits” said ubs vogt and they team note that apple shares currently trade at 29 times forward 12months estimates above the 1 3 and 5year averages of 25 27 and 23 times respectively that’s as apple’s roughly 50 relative premium to the sp 500 is around 10 year highs they say adding “while a premium is justified expansion is unlikely given growing headwinds” ahead of the market’s open apple may be getting dinged by this downgrade with shares off 08 but fellow tech brethren amazon amzn tesla tsla and nvidia nvda seem ready to step up all headed for ballpark 1 gains stocks futures es00 ym00 are higher led by tech nq00 while treasury yields bxtmubmusd10y bxtmubmusd02y are tilting south oil prices cl are up 1 after monday’s rout fueled by demand worries with an opec monthly r export ahead the dollar dxy is down 03 read why ‘king dollar’ benefiting from financial instability fears can stay high this year for more market updates plus actionable trade ideas for stocks options and crypto subscribe to marketdiem by investor’s business daily may consumer prices are due at 830 am with expectations for a rise of 01 cutting the annual rate to 4 from 49 in april core cpi which strips out food and energy prices is seen up 04 and down to 53 from 55 annually ahead of that a survey on smallbusiness optimism showed confidence improving though inflation remains a concern read why hotterthanexpected cpi on tuesday may derail a fed pause in june the twoday fed meeting also kicks off tuesday here are all the possible outcomes china meanwhile cut a key policy rate as the country’s covid recovery has lost steam oracle stock orcl is up 4 after the cloud computing group reported forecast beating results boosted by cloud revenue as executives highlighted demand by ai customers read ray dalio says ai technology is both ‘fabulous’ and ‘dangerous’ the federal trade commission has filed an injunction to block microsoft’s msft acquisition of activision blizzard atvi softbankowned uk chip designer arm is looking for an lead investor possibly intel intc to anchor its highly anticipated initial public offering eu regulators are considering a dismantle of search giant google’s googl adtech business on anticompetitive grounds the wall street journal reported the best of the web bank of america execs blew 936 billion here’s how they did it a landmark youth climate trial has kicked off in montana banks might just be killing productivity what is the most crowded trade among investors right now bank of america’s latest global fund manager survey says it’s that bullish view on big tech again and by a mile these were the topsearched tickers on marketwatch as of 6 am “dead” woman knocks on her coffin at funeral need to know starts early and is updated until the opening bell but sign up here to get it delivered once to your email box the emailed version will be sent out at about 730 am eastern listen to the best new ideas in money podcast with marketwatch reporter charles passy and economist stephanie kelton