Stocks rose on Friday in volatile trading as traders tried to regain some of the sharp losses from the previous session. The major averages, however, were on pace to post big losses for the week.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 224 points, or 0.9%, but had traded over 800 points higher earlier in the day. The S&P 500 was up 0.4% while the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.2%.
For the week, the Dow and S&P 500 were both down at least 5.6% while the Nasdaq had lost over 3%.
The names fates hinge on a successful reopening of the economy rose, but were off their session highs. Delta Air Lines was up 9.6% after jumping 13%. Carnival Corp. was up 10.3%, but had rallied more than 15%.
Those stocks were hit heavily during Thursday’s sell-off as investors feared the reopening of the economy could be delayed by a second wave of cases.
“Given the magnitude of the rally, it would shock me if we had a one day sell-off and that’s it,” said Morgan Stanley Investment Management’s Andrew Slimmon.
“The stocks that are up the most from the lows are still the risk-on, high beta, value, small-cap stocks,” Slimmon, who is a managing director and senior portfolio manager at the firm, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Friday morning Singapore time. “They’re still the big winners and I would suspect that there’s more pain to come near-term before the market clears out kind of this excessive speculation that we’ve seen recently.”
Wall Street’s fear gauge signaled more wild trading ahead. The Cboe Volatility Index rose to its highest level since April and traded above 43.
The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq on Thursday all recorded their biggest one-day losses since mid-March, posting losses of at least 5%. Thursday’s declines put the Dow and S&P 500 on pace for their biggest weekly losses since March 20, when they all dropped at least 12% amid broad economic shutdowns stemming from the pandemic.
Wall Street’s weekly losses came as data compiled by Johns Hopkins University showed the number of new coronavirus cases has risen in states like Arizona, South Carolina and Texas as they continue their reopening process. Arizona cases have nearly doubled since Memorial Day.
Still, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told CNBC’s Jim Cramer the U.S. can’t shut down the economy again. Overall, more than 2 million coronavirus cases have been confirmed in the U.S. along with over 100,000 deaths.
Stocks had been ripping higher prior to this week, as investors cheered the prospects of the economy recovering as states and countries eases quarantine measures.
“We had gone straight up more than 30% without a real sell-off, so you’re due for one, and I don’t think it’s the worst thing in the world,” said JJ Kinahan, chief market strategist at TD Ameritrade. “As more states get back, the question becomes: Are they going to ramp up fast enough to please Wall Street? What you’re seeing is it’ll be hard to do that.”
The S&P 500 and Dow remain more than 37% above the intraday lows reached on March 23. Most of those gains have been driven by stocks that would benefit from the economy reopening, including airlines, cruise lines and retailers.
“Some of these stocks may have gotten ahead of their skis,” said Kinahan. “When you see some of the airlines being priced at the levels they were before this all started when they say they’re going to do 60% of their business just doesn’t make sense.”
The decline this week pushed the S&P 500 back below its 200-day moving average, a widely followed level by traders.
“Once the S&P 500 crossed above the 200-day moving average [last month], it gave investors the green light to buy stocks; it said things are OK with the economy,” said Mitchell Goldberg, CEO of ClientFirst Strategy. “It also signaled hedge fund managers who got too heavy into cash are now way behind their benchmarks and are now performance-chasing.”
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