Rising retail sales and a promising coronavirus treatment send stocks soaring

Shoppers at the Mall of America.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

The stock market is on the rise thanks to two pieces of good news.

Numbers released Tuesday by the Commerce Department revealed that American retail sales had risen 17.7 percent throughout the month of May. That, combined with news that U.K. scientists had found an effective coronavirus treatment, sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average soaring more than 800 points after opening Tuesday, and both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite up over 2 percent.

The COVID-19 pandemic closed down stores across the U.S. and cost millions of Americans their jobs. As a result, retail sales fell 8.3 percent in March, and 14.7 percent in April. Those numbers finally started to rebound in May, Tuesday's numbers showed, but retail spending is still down eight percent since February.

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Meanwhile on Tuesday, scientists at the University of Oxford revealed that the low-dose steroid treatment dexamethasone had appeared to cut the risk of death for COVID-19 patients on ventilators. It cut the risk of death by a fifth for those on oxygen. Dexamethasone is a widely available, low-cost drug that could prove especially helpful in poorer countries and areas.

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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.