The S&P 500 Index rose Monday as the broader market benchmark attempts to climb out of correction territory as President Donald Trump's almost-daily tariff policy changes with major trading partners rattled investor sentiment. The index gained about 0.7%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average more than 350 points and the Nasdaq Composite advanced over 0.3%.
Here's how the market settled on Monday:
S&P 500 Index
Dow Jones Industrial Average
Nasdaq Composite Index
Stocks benefited from February's Retail Sales that showed month-over-month growth despite coming in below economist expectations, an advanced reading from the Census Bureau published Monday showed. Last month's headline retail sales rose 0.2%, below the 0.6% expected but well above January's downwardly revised decline of 1.2%.
"We kind of bounced back from that low January, and we're right back where we were in December," Stephen Juneau, senior US economist at Bank of America, told Yahoo Finance. "Until you see cracks on the labor market side, you're just not really going to see a big slowdown on the consumer overall."
February sales excluding auto and gas also beat expectations, rising 0.5%. Sales overall increased 3.1% year-over-year, coming in ahead of the 2.8% inflation rate from the most recent consumer price index (CPI) reading.
The new economic report comes as consumer and business outlooks sour in response to Trump's aggressive trade policies, dampening economic growth projections and reingiating inflation concerns.
"Consumers and businesses are expected to pull back on spending when they're unable to make informed decisions about he future of the economy and their place within it," said Elizabeth Renter, senior economist at personal finance website NerdWallet, quoted by CNBC. "Currently, direct economic policies and broad federal policies with indirect economic impact are in flux, making informed decisions difficult."
Homebuilder Confidence declined in March as both current sales and prospective buyer outlooks fell, the National Association of Home Builders Housing Market Index showed Monday. Headline confidence was down 3 points from the prior month and below economist estimates at 39 for the month -- the lowest reading in seven months. Readings below 50 indicate pessimism outlooks.
Beneath the headline, the level of builders reporting price reductions in response to sales conditions rose up 3 percentage points over February to 29% -- the average price reduction was 5%.
Barclays warned Monday that consumer finance companies, including Capital One
"While DOGE layoffs alone would not necessarily drive recessionary-level credit losses, one outcome could be a more modest deterioration in credit performance similar to past credit normalization cycles," the firm wrote in a Monday note. "Lenders that are more indexes to non-prime consumers would likely be the most affected."
