Market Recap: Friday, May 29

Stocks closed at their highest levels since at least March, ending Friday’s volatile session mostly higher after President Donald Trump announced retaliatory measures against China that were less negative for markets as some had feared. Myles Udland, Sean Smith, Rick Newman, and Akiko Fujita discuss on The Final Round.

Video Transcript

SEANA SMITH: Less than a minute away from the closing bell, and stocks are all in positive territory. The Dow just flipping back into the green, up just around 26 points, so barely above the flat line. We have the S&P and the NASDAQ also holding on to gains into the close. S&P up just around 6/10 of a percent, and the NASDAQ adding to earlier gains with tech the big outperformer here sectorwise with the NASDAQ up just around 1.4%.

We're seeing a couple of other sectors here holding on to gains. Utilities, health care--

[BELL RINGING]

That was the closing bell on Wall Street capping off what has been a pretty strong week for the markets. And as we close up the trading month of May, the NASDAQ closing at a 13-week high. We also have the S&P 500 closing at a 12-week ride. Dow closing at an 11-week high.

We've talked about this rally that we've seen in oil now really over the course of this month. Today it was up almost 4%, closing just about $34 a barrel. It was the highest level in the past 12 weeks. In the month of May, it was up 88% alone. It was the best month ever for crude, but we have to remember following that massive sell-off that we saw back in April.

Gold also closing at its highest level since September 2012, nearly eight years. Up almost 4%. We also have silver recording its best month since March 2011.

I want to bring in my co-host Myles Udland. And, Myles, it's interesting when you take a look at today's action. We still have the Dow settling here. It looks like it's maybe flip flopping here between positive and negative territory.

But as we wait for that to happen, it's interesting that investors are able to kind of shrug off some of those risks as we see the tensions rise between the US and China.

MYLES UDLAND: Yeah, I mean, you know, you mentioned those superlatives, 11-, 12-, 13-week highs for the Dow-- or the S&P, the Dow, and the NASDAQ, respectively. You know, I was thinking as were saying that, that puts us, like, back in the studio back in normal before times, right? That's end of February.

Now the market was descending from record highs that it had hit kind of right around Valentine's Day, depending on the index. I think the 12th and the 19th were the highs for the S&P and the Dow, something like that. So, you know, we're looking at, you know, three-month highs, essentially, for markets across the board.

And in a way what's been so interesting about how the stock market has treated the last couple of weeks is that it's almost like that whole panic period when we all felt the stress of going into shelter in place-- what would the virus do? What did the future look like? And I've used the word a lot because that's how I felt. Everything felt very apocalyptic.

And now we've kind of gotten through that from an investor standpoint. And I think-- I think there's kind of a question now, a very big question on what's the next catalyst? I mean, we had all this China news this week, and it really shook the market today, but kind of to what end, right? The Dow, as you mentioned, it's going to finish the day down 14 basis points. That's kind of like a day that came and went but nothing happened.

And so I think there are still a lot of trepidation in terms of what's going to be the next thing that we all worry about? because there was such a clear unknown in front of us, you know, maybe two, three months ago. OK, it's the virus. This is going to be bad. But now there's like you could kind of pick from a variety of things to be most concerned about, and I'm not sure that there's one thing right now-- surprisingly, perhaps, since we're a pandemic-- but I'm not sure that there's one thing the market is solely focused on.

SEANA SMITH: Yeah, and Jared, just to bring you into the conversation here-- I know you were watching the market's reaction today, and it was interesting, just the fact that markets have continued to march higher. We've had this massive momentum from the March lows. And going through some of those stats that you sent over, the NASDAQ closing at a 13-week high. S&P closing at a 12-week high. The Dow closing at an 11-week high. Investors just able to look past some of those uncertainties that Myles was just talking about and really just trying to push through and almost put the coronavirus in the rear-view mirror at this point.

JARED BLIKRE: Yeah, that's right, Seana. [COUGHS] Excuse me. So we're seeing the Dow up-- let's see, for the week, 917 points. That's the same as 3.75%. The S&P 500 up 3%. Russell 2000 up a little bit less. And then the NASDAQ the laggard for the week, 1.77%.

But this week has been an anomaly. That's when we saw value and cyclicals outperforming until really about yesterday, and then we saw tech come strong today. It was the leader.

But for the month, just looking down, we see communication services for May, that's the best sector. Includes some of the FAANG names, Alphabet and Facebook. That's up 7.4%. Tech is the second best, up 7%.

And talking about the NASDAQ, it's now within 2% of its all-time high. That's spitting distance. So I think that's significant. The worst sectors are staples and energy.

For the week, a flipped story. Financials, industrials the best and then communications services, energy the worst. But going into next week if we see this continued outperformance by tech and we also see some of the other big sectors like health care and maybe just one or two of these financials, industrials-- you know, we need something else to strengthen this rally. I think we can make it higher.

But as I've been pointing out, liquidity has been poor, except for on the close today. Lack of setups for traders just kind of showing that there is some kind of ennui in the markets right now. Nobody's chasing it. Nobody really wants to get involved at current levels. We're going to have to go materially higher to get that FOMO started again, I think.

And we'll be monitoring this next week, but I think the real big stories are going to be-- are going to continue to be China. This is not over with respect to China. They're going to push back a little. Trump's going to have to push back. We're going to see this tit for tat possibly, probably not with tariffs. If we see tariffs, forget about it. We could see Dow go down four digits.

But this is-- this is an election year. All stakes are out right now, and it's going to be really interesting over the next few months, Seana.