Stocks give up early gain and slide on Friday as market volatility continues

Stocks slipped Friday, giving up gains from earlier in the session a day after posting a historic turnaround rally as investors bet that inflation has peaked.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 145 points, or 0.48%. The S&P 500 gained 0.07%, and the Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.24%.

Bank stocks gained, leading the broader market, after four key earnings reports. Wells Fargo gained more than 5% after beating Wall Street’s revenue expectations. JPMorgan jumped more than 4%, and Citigroup rose more than 2%.

The positive moves come amid a negative outlook for the earnings season. Profit for S&P 500 companies increased a measly 2.4% in the third quarter, according to the latest analyst estimates collected by FactSet. That’s the worst growth since the third quarter of 2020, the heart of the pandemic.

When the third quarter began, earnings growth was expected to be 10% for the period, but rising costs and interest rates have eaten away at companies’ bottom lines. Leading up to the start of this reporting season, 65 S&P companies have issued negative guidance, compared to just 41 giving positive outlooks, FactSet data shows.

The reports come a day after the market staged a massive comeback. The Dow ended Thursday’s session up 827 points after being down more than 500 points at the intraday low. The S&P 500 rose 2.6% to break a six-day losing streak, and the Nasdaq Composite jumped 2.2%.

Thursday marked the fifth largest intraday reversal from a low in the history of the S&P 500, and it was the fourth largest for the Nasdaq, according to SentimenTrader.

The moves followed the release of the consumer price index, a key U.S. inflation reading that came in hotter than expected for the month of September. Initially, this weighed on markets as investors braced themselves for the Federal Reserve to continue with its aggressive rate-hiking plan. Later, however, they shrugged off those worries.

Still, persistent inflation remains a problem for the Fed and for investors’ worries around the central bank’s policy tightening.

“With core CPI still moving in the wrong direction and the labor market strong, the conditions are not in place for a Fed policy pivot, which would be one of the conditions for a sustained rally in the equity market,” wrote UBS global wealth management chief investment officer Mark Haefele in a Friday note. “Moreover, as inflation remains elevated for longer and the Fed hikes further, the risk increases that the cumulative effect of policy tightening pushes the US economy into recession, undermining the outlook for corporate earnings.”