Market Recap: Friday, May 22

Stocks ended little changed Friday, as ongoing signs of the economic damage from the coronavirus pandemic compounded with fears of rising U.S.-China tensions. Still, the three major U.S. equity indices posted weekly advances of about 3%, with investors largely factoring in the fallout from the COVID-19 crisis into asset prices.

Video Transcript

JEN: Welcome back to "The Final Round." We've got just about 15 seconds to wrap up this trading week. And we have really come back from the session lows. We're looking at a photo finish here on the Dow with the NASDAQ and the S&P both already in the green. Again, we were red this morning. We will see if we are able to retrace all of that ground to close here close to the flat line, at least for the Dow. The NASDAQ--

[CLOSING BELL RINGING]

[CHEERING]

It sounded pretty happy there on the floor today. I don't know if that's because we're heading into a three-day weekend. Of course, you see there, Memorial Day coming up, honoring the ultimate sacrifice that many people have made for our country here. So a low-volume day, pretty low-range, Jared Blikre saying in the last hour, a little bit of choppy action. But you could expect that ahead of a three-day weekend. How would you want to be positioned going into a three-day weekend with the coronavirus pandemic underway?

A leadership-- you've got to look at the Russell. The Russell all week has just been kicking it. I mean, we're going be up just about 7% there. Financials, energy-- those laggard names are coming back.

Big tech, which isn't necessarily doing bad, is actually underperforming. So it got us pretty far, but underperforming. We've had two IPOs this week, [INAUDIBLE], SelectQuote, and Inari today.

Rick Newman, I want to bring you in here. And look, I've got to see where we settle out to find out exactly what the close ends up being. But we did come off the lows that we saw earlier. And I really want to point to that strength, again, that we've seen in the Russell, Jared Blikre noting it's up three straight days here. What does that tell us about the reopening, what we're seeing?

RICK NEWMAN: I mean, I guess optimism is spreading from the top on down. It continues to seem discordant to me because we have just giant holes in the economy right now. But look, I mean, the news from this week was we've got reopenings of varying degrees in all 50 states now. And the markets think we're just going to get back to normal.

I mean, I should probably stop being such a scrooge about it and just say, go markets. I mean, we've seen the big caps, especially the tech companies, leading this recovery since the end of March. And now the small caps are catching up. I guess that is, to some extent, a vote of confidence in all the stimulus programs, including the Paycheck Protection Program, which is meant to help small caps and smaller companies along with a bunch of other federal programs. Maybe that money is getting through and actually making a difference.

JEN: Well, we certainly saw some of that stimulus money making a big difference for a lot of retailers this week, great numbers coming out of Target and Walmart, especially with their online sales, same goes for Home Depot and Lowe's.

I do want to note that the Dow was not able to get into the green today. So it's not across the board. The Dow is down just a little bit. But you know what? That becomes a streak down two days in a row.

Dan Roberts, you've been watching big tech here. And this really has been the story that's gotten us where we are. We're seeing broadening leadership. But tech is so critical to this market. What are you watching?

DAN ROBERTS: Well, so it's interesting, Jen. Two days ago, we were puzzling through why Facebook was up so much. And there's been a little bit of news here and there about Facebook. But I think in general, as Rick alluded to, the tech names have done very well.

Now, today, of course, you saw Alibaba down big, I think more than 6%, ending the day because, of course, disappointing guidance. Even though Alibaba had a great beat in its earnings report-- e-commerce up 20%. Cloud computing was up 60%. I'm just wondering, as all of these big tech names have done very well amid quarantine, as we start to return and as states start to reopen, might you see some of the other names catch up? I mean, some of these tech names were really just leading because they were seen as a stay-at-home trades and e-commerce was up so big.

Of course, as you mentioned, also Walmart and Target saw a boost because of e-commerce, also Nike. But soon enough, as a lot of the country-- not New York City-- starts to reopen, you wonder if the kind of headstart that the tech stocks had is going to fade.

- Well, it would be very bullish if we saw the rest of the market catch up with some of the moves that have been made in that--