 The closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange ending another week of trading. The Dow Jones was steadily rising throughout the day, ending up more than 300 points. It was a similar story for the S&P 500, which ended the day up around 1.5%. The Nasdaq also saw gains today, ending up just under 2%. Melissa Armo, founder and owner of the stock Swoosh, joins us now for more. What was driving the market today? The market's sort of relieved that all of the major earnings are out for this week. There was a lot of earnings this week that could have affected the market, and a lot of them were good. And also, the market is relieved that the Fed did not raise interest rates by a point. They only raised them by 0.75%. So I think there was a concern that we're going to raise them more than they had originally anticipated. Melissa Wallstreet is responding positively to the Fed's latest rate hike and GDP report. How much of that reaction is based on the confidence that the Fed is going to be successful in lowering inflation? I think that they think that they're going to be successful in stopping a recession continuing. There is different opinions here. Supposedly, again, with the data that we had out this week, two quarters of numbers going in the negative shows that we're in a recession, where you're having to trend down, where we're contracting. So why the Fed thinks that they can prevent this from happening is if they keep bumping up rates super fast, like they did this month and last month, that they'll be able to prevent a recession from happening and continuing past the summer. So therefore, that we'd be in a better place into the fall, and by the end of the year, the economy, gas prices, food. I don't know if that's the case. I really don't think that is the case. And personally, I think that raising interest rates of consumers right now is a negative thing because people are spending more money for gas, they're spending more money for food, they're spending more money for housing. So if people are borrowing on their credit cards, buying cars, housing, I think, will eventually slow down because of interest rates, mortgage rates going up. I don't see how raising rates is going to help the everyday American, and I think that's a problem. Yes, it's great the market rallied today. We actually rallied a couple of days this week. It's the strongest week the market's had, and I can't even remember this year, but the fact is most people are worried about what they're doing right now and living paycheck to paycheck. They're not worried or thinking about retirement unless, of course, they're in retirement. Amazon and Apple have reported strong earnings recently giving the NASDAQ that needed boost after taking some big hits throughout the year. But are you surprised by the reports? And what does that tell you about the trajectory of the tech sector? Well, I don't know if they'll ever have the same effect in the market as it did several years ago, back 2017, 2018, 2019, when Netflix and Apple and Amazon, they really ruled the market. You had Facebook down this week. That didn't have good earnings, and that fell, and that fell today, too, against the backdrop of a rally market. So I think things are not the same as they used to be as far as the effect on the overall market in that sector. But I will say this, Apple is a strong stock. They had good earnings and good iPhone sales. They had come out prior to the earnings this week last night and said that they thought that they were going to have supply chain issues, particularly with chips and things, the chip manufacturing, but it turned out they over a shot what they thought were going to be the problems so the pros were less. So I think part of it, again, was a relief that the pros were not as bad as they said, and they had good iPhone sales. And of course, Apple is a good strong company. That is one of the strongest things in the market. Long-term, Apple looks good. In fact, Apple is not far off the highs, but 20 points off the highs after the close today, whereas the market is still far off the highs to me. Could the market get back up to the highs and make a new high this year? I think it's going to be a stretch for the market to do that by the end of the year. It could, it might, but you have to remember all the other things that are happening in the world, Ukraine, Russia, these things are still at play and they are affecting us. We're in a 24-7 news cycle. Both of you ladies know that things are interconnected. Things will pray today. We could flip on a dime by Monday morning. Melissa, I also think that for Apple, they have that new USB port now is across the board. Everybody has to buy one. That might be helping their earnings as well. Thank you so much, Melissa Armo. Good to see you. Thank you.