S&P 500 on the bid as optimism lives beyond COVID-19 rising US cases

• The S&P 500 is adding over 1% in today's session. 
• Stocks bid with investors looking for businesses getting back to work.
• Investors to digest key economic reports and Fed's monetary policy decision.
• Number of confirmed US cases have neared 1 million.

Global stocks have been starting out on the bid this week, riding a wave of optimism surrounding the easing of social distancing measures, getting business back to work and a gradual process of reopening the world economy. Consequently, we are seeing the S&P 500 higher by 1.11% at the time of writing having travelled from a low of 2852.89 to a high of 2879.22.

There are a number of countries, including some US states, that are now starting to enable businesses to resume operations. The US reached a "plateau" in new coronavirus cases this weekend though and the number of confirmed cases have neared 1 million. Dr. Deborah Birx warned that social distancing "will be with us through the summer." So getting the population back to work is not going to be a straight-forward process by any stretch of the imagination. 

Nevertheless, with central banks, such as the Bank of Japan which was the latest central bank to take action to support markets under stress from the coronavirus shock, and heroic attempts to get people back to work, markets are of the mind that a recovery is underway. Consequently, we have seen the US benchmarks making hay while the sunshines. 

The week ahead

Meanwhile, investors will be not only watching for businesses getting back to work but simultaneously they will have to digest key economic reports in order to assess the damage at the outset of the domestic pandemic. For the week ahead, we have the first print of first-quarter US gross domestic product and we will also hear from the Federal Reserve for its latest monetary policy decision. This all will come on the heels of the Fed's bazookas of relief measures that have been bombarding the markets for several weeks to help businesses and households cope with the fallout from COVID-19 pandemic. We will also have a slew of corporate earnings this week form big names such as Alphabet (GOOGL), Boeing (BA), Facebook (FB), Microsoft (MSFT), Tesla (TSLA), Amazon (AMZN) and Apple (AAPL).

S&P 500 levels