Good morning! It's Thursday, May 6, and it's been a choppy trading week for investors. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq are down for the week, but the DJIA is up slightly over the course of the past 5 trading sessions.
Earnings Season Success
As of Wednesday, 381 of the S&P 500 companies have already released their quarterly earnings report. Of that group, 84% of reports topped analysts' expectations.
Meanwhile, on Main Street, many small businesses continue to battle local lockdown orders, and some report having tremendous difficulty finding workers as the reopening progresses.
Despite facing many of the same problems, the large-cap companies in the S&P 500 seem to be doing just fine; at least as far as their bottom lines are concerned.
Topped Out?
Markets are hovering near all-time highs, but what will it take for them to push into the next phase of the rally? Many experts believe we could see the market stall a bit at these levels and trade sideways for sometime before resuming its upward march.
Summer trading has a reputation for thin volume and under performance, but it's unclear how it will play it this earnings season due to the uniqueness of the post-pandemic recovery and the subsequent trading frenzy.
