On Friday, the S&P 500 nearly closed 20% lower from its all-time high in January signifying a bear market. However, a late-day rally pushed the index into the green. Today, the market once again went upwards. J.P. Morgan announced that it will reach a key performance target this year in a switch from earlier this year. During their first Investor Day since 2020, management said that net interest income could exceed $56 billion. This would be much higher than the $50 billion estimate from January. This positive news helped boost the stock 6.2%. Other banks also gained on the news with Bank of America gaining 5.94% and Wells Fargo gaining 5.16%.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple Inc. has told its contract manufacturers it wants to seek production outside of China. The major reason for this stems mostly from supply challenges which has hurt production of their major devices. Investors were pleased by Apple’s willingness to improve their supply chain and the stock rallied 4% during the day. Another outperformer on the technology side was VMWare. The cloud computing stock jumped nearly 25% on news that Broadcom would potentially pay around $140 a share for the company.
Even as stocks had a good day today, the macroeconomic environment remains unstable. Just last week numerous retailers saw major selloffs as their earnings reports failed to impress. There is also the threat of hiring slowdowns for major companies. Amazon recently said that its warehouses have become “overstaffed” while Carvana have announced they would be laying off 12% of its workforce. There are plenty of similar things happening to other businesses as well. Inflation also remains stubbornly high which has hurt both consumers and businesses. It remains important to be cautious while investing in this environment.