Wall Street gain fueled by hopes to ease lockdown

Stocks rallied led by a four percent surge in the Nasdaq with investors encouraged by talks on how to end the lockdown.

Conway G.

Gittens has the market wrap.

Wall Street was in rally mode Tuesday as hopes grow around plans to get people back to work and scale back public restrictions that have tipped the global economy into a recession.

Earnings season also kicked off Tuesday with a plunge in profits that was not as deep as feared.

The Dow jumped 2.4 percent.

The S&P 500 gained 3 percent.

The Nasdaq was the star - up roughly 4 percent.

Hopeful investors went back into the tech names that drove the market to record highs back in February.

Apple traded higher on a small rebound in iPhone shipments to China.

Amazon closed at an all-time high.

And shares of Netflix flirted with a fresh 52-week high.

Randy Watts, chief investment officer, O'Neil Global Advisors.

SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) RANDY WATTS, CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER, O'NEIL GLOBAL ADVISORS, SAYING: "We like a lot of the secular leaders - stocks like Netflix, Amazon, Docusign, Zoom - so companies that have good secular businesses that are growing.

They were growing before the virus hit we think they will keep growing after.

In terms of earnings season, we do think it could provide an excuse for the market to pull back a little bit.

Earnings are forecasted be down 11 percent for the quarter and importantly earnings are now forecasted by Wall Street to be down about 10 percent for the entire year." Investors got their first glimpse on earnings starting with JPMorgan Chase.

Profits plunged by more than two-thirds in the first quarter.

America's largest bank laid aside roughly $7 billion to cover potential loan losses in the coming months.

But some investors fear the bank could potentially be on the hook for billions in bad loans after CEO Jamie Dimon warned the economy was facing a recession that would be "fairly severe." The stock was down 3 percent.

Profits at struggling bank Wells Fargo were down sharply as well.

It set aside nearly $4 billion for loans that could go unpaid.

Its stock was down 4 percent.

Earnings rose at drugmaker Johnson and Johnson thanks to higher revenues from cancer drugs and a boost from consumer medicines like Tylenol.

It cut its 2020 profit forecast due to uncertainties but in a bullish sign JNJ raised its quarterly dividend.

The stock bounced 4 percent.

Airlines rallied after sources told Reuters some in the hard-hit sector were close to accepting the terms of a $25 billion financial assistance program from the U.S. government.