Wall Street Today | US Profits Set for Pandemic-Sized Drop, Goldman Strategists Say

The U.S. stock market will be closed on Friday, April 7, reopening Monday. Bond trading will be open for a shortened session, closing at 12 p.m. ET.

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said steps taken to ease financial strains were working and the central bank should keep raising interest rates to fight high inflation.

The emergency lender sees the world economy expanding about 3% over the next half decade as higher interest rates bite, Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in a speech in Washington Thursday. That’s the lowest medium-term growth forecast since 1990 and less than the five-year average of 3.8% from the past two decades.

Analyst consensus expectations are for S&P 500 earnings-per-share to fall 7% in the first quarter from a year earlier, marking the sharpest decline since the third quarter of 2020 and a low point in the profit cycle, strategists including Lily Calcagnini and David Kostin wrote in a note. "If analyst projections are realized, this quarter will represent the trough in S&P 500 earnings growth."

Italy's MPS Capital Services Banca per le Imprese SpA scored top position in Bloomberg's accuracy rankings for the first quarter of 2023. Now, MPS chief strategist Luca Mannucci is warning that the greenback could plunge as much as 5% against other currencies in the second half.

The company announced it would expand its EV fast-charging network to Walmart and Sam's Club locations across the country, adding to the nearly 1,300 EV stations currently in operation at 280 of the company's locations.