US equity markets once again recovered from morning losses to settle higher, shrugging off weak April retail sales figures - Dow added +60-points or +0.25%, recovering from an earlier fall of over >270-points. The broader S&P500 gained +0.39% after trading down as much as -1.3% earlier in the session. According to Bespoke data, it was the first time that the S&P500 had been down over >1% intra-day only to finish positive on back-to-back days since 16 January, 2009. Communications Services (up +1.3%) led six of the eleven primary sectors higher. Utilities (down -1.4%) and Financials (-0.7%) were the worst performing sectors. The NASDAQ rose +0.79%. The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday (15 May) that Google is likely to be the target of antitrust lawsuits by the US Justice Department and a group of state attorneys general. The small capitalisation Russell 200 index outperformed with a +1.6% gain. Sorrento Therapeutics Inc surged +158% after the company’s experimental antibody candidate showed potential in blocking COVID-19 infections in early studies. For the week, the Dow fell -2.65%, S&P500 -2.26% to log its worst week since the week ended 20 March. Nasdaq -1.17%, it biggest weekly decline since the week ended 3 April.
