Stocks rallied on Thursday to close out their best week since 1974, as Wall Street grew increasingly confident that the coronavirus crisis is starting to improve and the Federal Reserve took extraordinary additional measures to support the embattled U.S. economy.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told CNBC on Thursday that he believes the U.S. economy could get back up and running next month.

Key background: “Markets have undergone a powerful rally these last few weeks on back of three critical catalysts,” describes Adam Crisafulli, founder of Vital Knowledge. Those include the “unprecedently aggressive” support measures from the Fed, the $2 trillion fiscal stimulus from Congress and a “plateauing” of coronavirus infections in several European and U.S. hot spots.

Big number: Over 16 million. That’s how many Americans have filed for unemployment benefits in the last three weeks, the latest indicator of how badly the coronavirus is impacting the economy.

Crucial statistics: Investors have become increasingly optimistic that the coronavirus outbreak will soon turn a corner. Thursday’s rally built on gains from the previous session, where both the Dow and S&P 500 gained more than 3% after Senator Bernie Sanders dropped out of the presidential race. The market gave up nearly 4% of gains and closed in the red on Tuesday, following a massive rally on Monday, in which the Dow posted its third-biggest point gain ever, rising nearly 8%.

American Airlines, Starbucks among stocks making biggest moves midday

Source: CNBC

According to CNBC, major stocks in several battered sectors including travel and retail were among the biggest winners in midday trading. American Airlines and several department stores saw their stock prices rise by more than 10% on Thursday. A few energy stocks also saw big jumps as the market awaits final word on cuts from OPEC.

Tech giants’ stock price of the day

It’s time investors get in-tune with buying a bear market low that has fast become a meaningful bottom, according to Nasdaq.

One way to align your portfolio towards that end is with three of the following stocks to buy. These stocks have little to do with market capitalization and everything to do with future growth and technical leadership in today’s and tomorrow’s stock market. Let me explain.

Not to take the wind out of the sails of Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) or Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN). The tech giants are the market’s three largest capitalization companies with valuations, even after 2020’s bearish cycle, on either side of $1 trillion. That’s significant to say the least.

Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon shares are also important because they happen to influence broader averages like the S&P 500, NASDAQ Composite and Dow Jones Industrial Average almost on a daily basis. The thing is, each of these mega-cap stocks are blue-chips that make a habit of moving. Still, there’s more to successfully tracking and investing in the market.

Apple (AAPL) Gains But Lags Market

According to Yahoo, Apple (AAPL) closed the most recent trading day at $267.99, moving +0.72% from the previous trading session. The stock lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 1.45%. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 1.22%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 0.78%.

Heading into today, shares of the maker of iPhones, iPads and other products had lost 3.4% over the past month, outpacing the Computer and Technology sector's loss of 5.61% and the S&P 500's loss of 7.42% in that time.

AAPL will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release. The company is expected to report EPS of $2.21, down 10.16% from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $55.20 billion, down 4.86% from the year-ago period.

AAPL's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $12.50 per share and revenue of $261.79 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +5.13% and +0.62%, respectively.

Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) stock wins as the tech giant is making another big change to its supply chain services

Amazon (AMZN) stock price today traded 8.44% higher today than four months ago. The company has seen a surge in its operation amid the coronavirus crisis, pushing the executives to implement more measures to protect employees from the coronavirus, Coinspeaker reported.

Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN) stock has been one of the winning stocks, defying the gravitational pull by the COVID-19 crisis. At the time of writing, the stock price is 0.49 % down. But it is still over 8% higher than four months ago. Trading at $2,032.99, and showing a lot of strength to push even higher, which will be retesting the all-time high and beyond.

It's suspending its third-party shipping program, Amazon Shipping, starting in June. The move follows a mid-March announcement that it will only receive essential items in its warehouses from third-party merchants, WJS told.

Amazon Shipping is a service the company offers businesses to deliver non-Amazon packages. It uses excess capacity in its fulfillment network to offer prices that are often lower than UPS (NYSE:UPS) or FedEx (NYSE:FDX). The program is only available in a few cities.

Amazon's decision to suspend the Amazon Shipping service indicates that it's seeing a significant increase in demand, and it's stretching the capacity of its fulfillment network.

Stock price today: Global stocks move higher as OPEC meeting soon to launch Global stocks posted small gains on Thursday on hopes that the coronavirus outbreak may be slowing in the United States and Europe. Oil futures, meanwhile, ...

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