Rising retail sales and a promising coronavirus treatment send stocks soaring

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.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

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.