Stocks Up On Friday, Up For The Week, S&P Makes Another New All-Time High  Image: Bigstock Stocks soared on Friday, reversing Thursday's losses and then some. The Dow, S&P, and Nasdaq also closed higher for the week, with the S&P putting in yet another new all-time high! The small-cap Russell 2000 was higher on Friday as well, but wasn't able to hit that mark for the week. It's funny how everybody was wringing their hands on Thursday over growth concerns (for no good reason), and how everybody went from runaway inflation panic (wrong) to suddenly deflation panic (also wrong) for no reason whatsoever, other than to 'explain' a less than -1% move to the downside. That hysteria seemed to have lasted one day. The point is, sometimes markets go down a bit. And after such a spectacular run, a little bit of profit taking is totally normal. And that's the takeaway. Keep your eyes on the big picture and don't get spooked by ordinary noise, which is what Thursday's pullback was. So what's the big picture? Full-year GDP is expected to come in at the fastest pace in 37 years. The jobs market continues to improve. And with more jobs available than there are people to fill them, it looks like the jobs market will stay hot for quite some time. The consumer is in one of the strongest financial positions in decades. And banks have only gotten stronger. Corporate profits have literally just recently hit record highs. All while interest rates sit at record lows, with the Fed saying they plan to keep it that way thru 2022 and a portion of 2023. Then add in the opening of our economy, coupled with unprecedented pent-up economic demand meeting an unprecedented amount of stimulus money, and you have all the ingredients for an historic move in both the economy and the market. And it looks like this could be the beginning of a multiyear boom! BTW, adding to the bullish tone, earnings season officially kicks off this week when Alcoa reports earnings on Thursday, 7/15, after the market's close. Earnings season is always an exciting time since stocks typically go up during earnings season. This week we'll get 129 companies reporting earnings. Next week we'll get 404 companies. And then the week after that we'll get 1,096 companies reporting earnings. And we'll still have several more weeks left after that. In the meantime, the market looks great. It looks like there's a lot more upside to go. So make sure you're taking full advantage of it. See you tomorrow,  Kevin Matras
Executive Vice President, Zacks Investment Research | 
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