Fed adds juice to Wall Street rally

Wall Street put the finishing touches on its biggest weekly rally since 1974.

Applause on Wall Street Thursday after a massive $2.3 trillion lifeline announced by the Federal Reserve to aid small and midsized businesses... took the sting out another massive surge in unemployment claims.

More than 6 million people filed for unemployment benefits for a second week in a row - bringing the three-week total to an eye-popping record of 16.8 million Americans, that's roughly 10 percent of the working population.

With fear the U.S. could be facing a long and deep recession - the Fed once again stepped in. This time with its largest effort yet to ease the pain on Main Street.

Fed chief Jerome Powell:

SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIRMAN JEROME POWELL, SAYING:

"We expect to see a very low economic output and big increases in initial claims for unemployment and in unemployment.:

The rescue plan certainly went over well with investors - with stocks ending a holiday-shortened trading week to the upside.

Markets are closed Friday for the holiday.

Art Hogan, chief market strategist at National Securities sees three reasons behind this week's market surge.

SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) ART HOGAN, CHIEF MARKET STRATEGIST, NATIONAL SECURITIES, SAYING:

"I think the market is responding to things like the Federal Reserve pulling out all of the stops and virtually saying: 'we are here, we've got enough money to make sure we see our way through the other side of this.' The fiscal policy response has been very aggressive We're seeing a historic 2.2 trillion dollar package and talk of more assistance coming. And I think the most important thing is investors are starting to key on place around the globe where it seems like new case discovery, the number of cases is peaking and that's almost as important as any of the economic data."

But numbers rolling out on the economy continue to be bleak. Consumer sentiment tumbled in early April to its lowest in more than 8 years.

With consumer attitudes in the dumps and movie theaters closed for the foreseeable future - Wall Street is growing more concerned about the fate of theater chain AMC. The stock was downgraded to a sell by one analyst who fears AMC could be headed for bankruptcy. Shares of AMC nosedived 20 percent.