which means they were the vast majority of the comp sales the in store sales were .9%. the stores fulfilled 80% of the digital orders in some way brian cornell said the retailer will spend $500 million from the beginning of march through july 4th on higher wages and other operational expenses related to the covid crisis so this spending goes beyond q 1 into q 2 not directly comparable with what we heard from walmart yesterday. the sales came at a cost their operating income margin was 2.4% compared to 6.4% in the same period last year and the gross margin rate was 25% compared to nearly 30% last year but then look at lowes, michael baker calls lowe s perhaps the most surprising result of the quarter for retail their comparable sales grew more than 11% total up more than 12% in the u.s. that s only the fourth time in at least ten years we think that lowe s beat home depot in the u.s. both retailers had identical online sales growth in the quarter of 80% but that is a huge grow
look at the s&p 500 at 2978, a 55-point gain and there is the nasdaq the outperformer yet again, almost 2.25%, 200 points, 9387 the nasdaq, not all that far away from last february s highs, which our headliner says this hour is going to happen this year and not just the nasdaq so let s welcome in fund strat s tom lee. he is joining us via skype tom, welcome back. nice to see you again. thanks for having me. big call. how are we going to get there this year, tom you say 3450 is happening? yes, and i think what really drives our view is that companies in the midst of the shutdown aren t standing still you know, they re reengineering their operations, learning how to be digital, run with fewer employees and less real estate so in 2021, as we exit this pandemic, they re going to generate higher earnings on a lower level of sales and that means implied better pes. and that s why we get into july, stocks will start discounting that and we re looking for new high hi highs. y
green. we re currently holding onto some gains despite the miserable number out of adp, 20.2 million jobs lost in april looking at commentary from disney and gm on various stages of reopening in shanghai, here in north america and the nasdaq continues to confound some of the bears as it is less than 1% from going positive for the year. it s actually pretty incredible and speaks to how defensive those megacap tech names have been viewed to be by investors in the market and for good reasoning looking at what we ve seen so far where earnings are concerned. the other thing to keep an eye on is crude prices after five straight days of gains you have futures up 28% for the month of may so far. those coming up because of the u.s. private payroll numbers, that 20 million plus drop in april, which was not unexpected but still obviously so painful, especially when you put it in context of being the worse jobless in the history of the adp report that as you balance the daily data that
o leary is with us kevin, welcome back to you look at where we stand right now following that adp employment report been all over the place. nasdaq has been positive throughout dow has been bouncing around, as has the s&p 500. the jobs number shocking, neutralized somewhat, though, by the continued move in tech stocks, like apple, rising above $300 a share today pete, that s really why we re talking about the divergence these horrific economic numbers. and yet, unbelievable stock market numbers, because of tech, which is the only s&p sector positive on the year yeah, it s been an unbelievable rise out of those tech stocks that you mentioned, and sprinkle a little bit with the tech stocks as well. because we ve seen a really nice rise there we know how narrow this is the narrowness really comes with those megacap stocks and we talk about these all the time and that s something that obviously last year, f.a.a.n.g. was the big story. we continue to have a narrow sort of group
highest on the street. we ll debate in our call of the day. plus ten growth stocks that look attractive right now. the investment committee is ready to go. halftime report starts right no now. it is good to have you with us on this wednesday steve weiss, carrie firestone. also with us on set is mike wilson, the chief u.s. equity strategist at morgan stanley we begin where else? the market stocks are reversing significant overnight losses to be mostly positive now, s&p and nasdaq hitting new all-time highs clearly this seems is the marke making a bet, that while tensions with iran may continue, the conflict will not. let s see if we can simplify a complex situation. obviously the geopolitical tensions cause volatility. what keeps the market on stable footing is liquidity and the fed and everything it s done to increase liquidity and give stability. where you go in the short term is a balance between those two we re seeing struck right now. in the long term, we know wha