Welcome to Seeking Alpha's Wall Street brunch, our Sunday look ahead to this week's

market-moving events, along with the weekend's top news and analysis.

Hello, today is Sunday, June 1st, and I'm your host, Kim Con.

Wall Street starts June with a strong performance in May under its belt.

The SMP 500 gained 6.1% for the month its best performance since an 8.9% rise in November two years ago. Preliminary results

from the 2025 reconstitution of the Russell U.S. indexes show that the U.S. equity market has

grown significantly over the past year. As of the April 30th rank date, the total market cap of the Russell 3,000 index rose 10%,

reaching $58.4 trillion, up from $53 trillion at the time with last year's rebalance.

On the macroeconomic front, the major news bookends the week.

On Monday afternoon, Fed Chairman Jay Powell will deliver

opening remarks at the Federal Reserve Board's International Finance Division 75th anniversary

conference. Powell was coming off his first meeting with President Donald Trump in the latter's

second term, with Trump urging Powell to lower rates. But the Fed later released a statement that the Federal

Open Market Committee will set monetary policy as required by law to support maximum

employment and stable prices. Those decisions will be, quote, based solely on careful,

objective, and non-political analysis, unquote. On Friday, the May employment report is due,

with economists expecting a gain of 130,000 in non-farm payrolls, Wells Fargo economists say,

May's employment report will offer the first real look at how the labor market is faring under a rapidly changing trade environment.

The figures will capture hiring that occurred in the initial weeks following Liberation Day's tariff announcements,

a period in which

uncertainty about economic policy and growth reached fever pitch. The appetite to hire among firms

remains tepid. New job postings on Indeed fell to their lowest level since 2020 in May,

...