Wall Street trends near flatline, gyrates between gains and losses; Nasdaq soars 6% this week

Volatility looms as a record $2.8 trillion in options expire.

U.S. stocks gave up their intraday gains to trade flat on Friday, May 16. All three Wall Street indices, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite shifted between the red and green, hovering close to the flatline, capping a strong week of gains.

Major tech stocks are supporting the Nasdaq index. Adobe has risen more than 3 percent, while both Class A and Class C shares of Alphabet are up over 2 percent. Charter Communications is also seeing strong gains, along with Micron, AMD, and Tesla, each climbing more than 1 percent amid optimism around artificial intelligence and electric vehicles.

So far this week, the S&P 500 has advanced 4.5 percent, the Dow has risen 2.6 percent, and the Nasdaq Composite has surged over 6 percent. On Thursday, both the S&P 500 and Dow ended higher, while the Nasdaq closed slightly lower.

Wall Street may experience heightened volatility on Friday as a record-breaking number of options contracts are due to expire. Goldman Sachs estimates that over $2.8 trillion in notional options exposure will lapse, marking the largest such figure ever recorded for a May session.

While market sentiment has improved somewhat following a temporary deal between the US and China earlier this week, several leading US companies are sounding the alarm on escalating costs and persistent economic uncertainty. On Thursday, Walmart announced plans to raise prices on select items later in May due to the impact of tariffs.

Speaking Friday, President Trump remarked that his administration was unable to accommodate meetings with 150 different parties interested in making deals. He noted that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick would be responsible for informing countries about the import tariffs the U.S. intends to implement.

“So at a certain point over the next two to three weeks, I think Scott and Howard will be sending letters out, essentially telling people— it will be very fair but we will be telling people what they will be paying to do business in the United States,” Trump stated.

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