Week of 05/15-05/19 Stock market rises on debt ceiling expectations

Stocks rallied on Thursday as investors switched gears after Speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, announced a resolution can come as soon as next week. This implies that the debt ceiling will most likely be raised, since any other action would require further approval and thus take more time. The debt ceiling worries came rushing in after last weeks FED's interest rate hike. The focus seems to have shifted from inflation to the national debt and banking crisis. Walmart reported strong earnings, beating expectations, while Target took a sudden drop as the worst performer of the week due to an announcement from their CFO of theft significantly impacting the business operation. Nvidia (NVDA) took the stage this week as it rallied over 10% this week on the announcement of its GeForce RTX 4060 line-up of graphics cards. Nvidia has been making big moves this year in artificial intelligence and their stock price got upgraded twice by Wall Street to $350 per share target. As the S&P 500 (SPY) trades closely to the 420 mark, we will have to wait until next week's debt ceiling decision to either see a rally continuation or a break in this recent trend.