Q2 GDP Could Crater 42%, Stocks Rise Anyways

Wall Street's stubborn compartmentalization continued on Friday, as investors continued to look to a dovish Federal Reserve and hopes for a vaccine over increasingly dire economic indicators. Optimism over reopening has also factored into a post-March rally that seems starkly disconnected from the day-to-day experiences of most Americans.

Worse-than-expected retail sales data and a record-setting plunge in factory output both captured the market's attention in the morning as stocks dived; by the afternoon, however, all three major indices finished higher. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 60 points, or 0.3%, to finish at 23,685.

Read:

Atlanta Fed: GDP to plunge 42% in Q2. A tool provided by the Atlanta arm of the U.S. central bank is projecting a 42% decline in the gross domestic product for the second quarter. A week ago, the measure, dubbed GDPNow, stood at 34.9%. Other estimates, including one by Goldman Sachs (ticker: GS ), are projecting similarly precipitous numbers. Goldman specifically is forecasting a 39% decline.

Yes, retail and factory numbers are bad. In what was likely a surprise to very few everyday Americans, retail and factory output numbers that came out Friday were both miserable. April retail sales fell 16.4%, far worse than the 11.9% slump analysts expected and roughly double March's 8.3% decline.

Industrial production, for its part, fell 11.2% in April – the single worst month in the index's 101-year history.

WSJ: Google facing imminent antitrust lawsuits. The Wall Street Journal reported that antitrust suits against Alphabet's ( GOOG , GOOGL ) Google, courtesy of both the Department of Justice and several state attorney generals, would hit the search engine giant in coming months.

While the government's antitrust probes of "big tech" giants like Google, Facebook ( FB ), Amazon ( AMZN ) and Apple ( AAPL ) has been public for some time, Friday's report is the first indication that real action seems to be coming down the pike. In Google's case, its domination of the online advertising market, as well as concerns it uses its stranglehold on the search market to squash competitors, is central to the investigations.

6 Travel Stocks for a Potential Recovery

Compare Offers

Compare Offers

Leave a Comment