Wall Street posts big gains to end strong week

STORY: U.S. stocks rallied Friday, rebounding off the bear market lows to notch the first weekly gain of the month, as investors tempered expectations for the Federal Reserve's plan to hike interest rates.

This after a University of Michigan survey showed that while U.S. consumer sentiment fell to a record low in June, Americans saw a marginal improvement in the outlook for inflation.

Rod von Lipsey is a managing director at UBS Private Wealth Management.

“We're seeing a little bit of a relief today, and that's because perhaps investors are believing that the market has been overly pessimistic. With last week's hawkish Fed, there's probably a higher likelihood that we could maneuver ourselves to a soft landing. And so the traders are coming back and saying maybe things are overly overly pessimistic. And so we're seeing a little bit of support in the markets this afternoon.”

The Dow climbed more than 800 points to end almost 2.7% higher. The S&P 500 rose 3%, snapping a three-week losing streak, while the Nasdaq soared three and a third percent higher.

Bank stocks rallied after the Fed's annual "stress test" exercise showed that the country's big banks have enough capital to weather a severe economic downturn.

Shares of FedEx jumped after issuing a stronger-than-expected full-year profit forecast.

And tech stocks, which have been battered so far this year, staged a comeback with Meta Platforms, Alphabet and Netflix posting gains of more than 5%.