Wall Street ends dismal week with sharp gains
Wall Street finished off a rough week on a brighter note as investors bet the economic rebound will continue to chug along.
The Dow rallied 360 points on Friday. The S&P 500 gained 61. The Nasdaq surged 314.
The market was oversold and may be scaling back some of those inflation fears that rattled stocks earlier in the week, says Carin Pai, head of equity strategy at Fiduciary Trust International.
"So some of the inflation numbers that we're seeing, maybe the market's overreacting a little bit on the concern about an inflationary scenario that's going to be sustained. We think more so, the inflation scenario that we're thinking about is that it's going to last for a period of time, but it's not going to be sustained."
Shares of Walt Disney were left out of the rally. Investors weren't happy with the latest subscriber numbers for the Disney+ streaming service. The stock fell 2.6 percent. Netflix, the top name in the streaming video business, moved higher.
Beauty stocks rallied as investors bet there will be more sales of make-up and other cosmetics after the CDC advised fully-vaccinated Americans that they don't have to wear masks in most places. Revlon jumped more than 4 percent and Estee Lauder, parent of MAC, rose nearly 2 percent.
Despite Friday's gains it was still the worst week for the stock market since February.
Investors had to sort through more disappointing economic data Friday. Retail sales unexpectedly stalled in April. Sales were flat after the upwardly revised 10.7 percent surge in March, as the impact of stimulus money waned.
But what's bad news for Main Street might be seen as good news on Wall Street, with investors betting the retail sales slowdown will dampen talk the Federal Reserve will need to remove the extra stimulus it's pumping into the economy.
