Investors’ Confidence Lifts U.S. Stocks to Best Month Since 1987: Live Updates
The S&P 500 closed down nearly 1 percent, but it was a small retreat in an otherwise strong month for Wall Street. Even with the decline on Thursday factored in, the S&P 500 had its best month since January 1987, a gain that came despite it becoming increasingly clear that the coronavirus crisis was pushing the United States into a dire economic downturn.
The nearly 13 percent gain this month means the S&P 500 is now up roughly 30 percent from its March 23 low. It’s a rally that has surprised even the most ardent bulls.
“Frankly, I’m shocked by the speed of the rally,” said Julian Emanuel, chief equity and derivatives strategist at the brokerage firm BTIG, who has been expecting a rebound since before the rally began.
The rally, coming even in the face of crushing economic data, highlights investors’ confidence that things will return to normal sooner than they thought when stocks were collapsing in late February and early March.
Both the Federal government and the central bank have pumped trillions of dollars into the economy and financial markets. And lockdown measures appear to be having some success in reducing rates of infection, with some states laying out the conditions for reopening.
With most of the nation on lockdown, technology companies like Amazon and Apple benefited as consumers found other ways to spend their money.
The company’s income was bolstered by surging sales of its internet services and the Apple Watch and AirPods.
Apple typically forecasts its sales for the next quarter but declined to do so on Thursday. Analysts expect the current quarter to be much uglier because of virus-related shutdowns around the world.
Apple showed confidence in its financial footing though by announcing another $50 billion in stock buybacks.
The spread of the coronavirus played right into the hands of Amazon’s core businesses, as consumers shopped more online and companies spent more on cloud computing. Those two pillars of Amazon’s business drove sales to their highest on record outside of the holiday shopping season, the company said on Thursday.
Amazon reported that it had $75.5 billion in sales in the latest quarter, up 26 percent from a year earlier, surpassing analysts’ expectations. Profit fell about 29 percent, to $2.5 billion, because it cost more to meet the increased customer demand.
Amazon’s chief executive, Jeff Bezos, signaled that the company’s profits may continue to fall in the near future. The company would typically expect to make around $4 billion in operating profit in the next quarter, but “we expect to spend the entirety of that $4 billion, and perhaps a bit more, on Covid-related expenses getting products to customers and keeping employees safe,” he said in a statement.
Mark Zuckerberg said last month that it would remove posts promoting bleach as a cure for the coronavirus, and Twitter last month announced it would delete virus tweets “that could potentially cause harm.” But Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have declined to remove statements by President Trump suggesting disinfectants and ultraviolet light as possible treatments.
By Friday, the day after Mr. Trump’s comments at a White House briefing, mentions of a disinfectant cure on social media and television broadcasts surged to 1.2 million, up from roughly 400,000 on Thursday, according to Zignal Labs, a media insights company. A New York Times analysis found 768 Facebook groups, 277 Facebook pages, nine Instagram accounts and thousands of tweets pushing UV light therapies that were posted after Mr. Trump’s comments and that remained on the sites as of Wednesday.
The social media companies have always tread delicately when it comes to Mr. Trump. Yet their inaction on posts echoing his remarks on UV lights and disinfectants stands out because the companies have said for weeks that they would not permit false information about the coronavirus to proliferate.
Most of the tech companies developed health misinformation policies “with the expectation that there would be a competent government and reputable health authority to point to,” said Renee DiResta, a technical research manager who studies misinformation at the Stanford Internet Observatory. Given that false information is coming from the White House, the companies have been thrown for a loop, she said.
YouTube said Mr. Trump’s comments did not violate its misinformation policy. Twitter said satire and discussions of Mr. Trump’s remarks that do not include a call to action, as well as Mr. Trump’s comments themselves, did not violate its policies. Facebook, which owns Instagram and WhatsApp, did not respond to requests for comment.
Catch up: Here’s what else is happening.
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Boeing said on Thursday that it had raised $25 billion in a bond offering in an effort to inject liquidity into its business. As a result, the aerospace giant said, it would not seek additional funding through capital markets or aid from the federal government.
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United Airlines reported a net loss of $1.7 billion in the first quarter and said it had about $9.6 billion in cash on hand to weather the crisis. The airline expects to burn through cash in the second quarter at an average daily rate of $40 to $45 million, on par with its peers.
Reporting was contributed by Jack Nicas, Karen Weise, Gregory Schmidt and Niraj Chokshi.