Finance

10’000 HoursSome states are requiring workers who received a federal tax break on unemployment benefits to file an amended tax return to get their refund.This largely applies to taxpayers who’d filed a federal and state tax return before the American Rescue Plan became law.That $1.9 trillion Covid relief measure waived federal tax on up to $10,200 of unemployment benefits collected last year, per person. (The maximum is double for a married couple.)More from Personal Finance:Stimulus check less than expected? How the IRS will let you knowHow to handle an inherited 401(k) or IRAPeople weigh ‘revenge spending’ with $1,400 stimulus checkPresident Joe Biden signed the bill on March 11 — about a month into tax season.Many people filed their returns without claiming the tax break, meaning they likely overpaid their taxes and may be owed a refund.There are probably a ton of people who got unemployment who rushed to file. People are still in panic mode and wanted a refund as soon as possible.Albert Campocertified public accountantThe IRS is issuing federal tax refunds automatically starting in May. (It may also apply the funds to other taxes owed.) It’s unclear how many people are affected.Taxpayers won’t have to file an amended federal tax return unless the unemployment tax break makes them newly eligible for tax benefits like the earned income tax credit.State taxesTaxpayers may not be so lucky at the state level.For one, a dozen states aren’t offering the federal tax break on unemployment benefits, meaning workers have state tax liability.States that did adopt the federal tax cut may not issue a refund automatically.Zoom In IconArrows pointing outwards”There are probably a ton of people who got unemployment who rushed to file,” said Albert Campo, a certified public accountant based in Manalapan, New Jersey. “People are still in panic mode and wanted a refund as soon as possible.”In such cases, taxpayers who filed early may need to file an amended state tax return to get a state tax refund.The situation will vary by state.New Mexico, for example, is suggesting eligible taxpayers file amended returns.Doing so could mean a lower tax, a larger refund and qualification for certain tax credits and exemptions for which they were previously ineligible, according to the state Taxation and Revenue Department.Unemployment exclusionThe federal tax break is technically an “exclusion.” It lets taxpayers exclude up to $10,200 of unemployment benefits from their taxable income. A state tax return filed before mid-March will still reflect a higher income, without the exclusion applied.”Taxpayers who filed their income tax returns before the passage of the American Rescue Plan Act may wish to file an amended return to reflect their new [adjusted gross income] … and to claim any refund they may now be owed,” according to the New Mexico tax agency.However, the Massachusetts Department of Revenue is urging taxpayers who filed their 2020 returns without claiming the tax break not to file an amended state return.”If a taxpayer is eligible for a refund, the Department will issue a refund payment to the taxpayer and the taxpayer need not take any action,” the agency said.Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker signed a law April 1 offering the tax benefit to households whose income is less than 200% of the federal poverty level.           12 statesTwelve states aren’t offering the unemployment tax break, according to H&R Block data as of April 5.They are: Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Carolina, New York, Rhode Island, South Carolina and West Virginia.Taxpayers in these states who filed a tax return after the American Rescue Plan passed may have mistakenly excluded unemployment benefits from their state tax return as well as their federal return.Such taxpayers should have added back unemployment benefits to income on their state tax returns.Zoom In IconArrows pointing outwardsBut some states aren’t correcting the returns automatically. They’re telling taxpayers to file an amended state tax return to accurately reflect income.That’s the case in New York, for example.”If you already filed your 2020 New York State return, and you did not add back unemployment compensation that was excluded from your federal gross income, then you must file an amended return with New York State,” according to the Department of Taxation and Finance.In other states like Hawaii, the situation is even more complex.The Hawaii State Legislature is considering adopting the unemployment tax break. But taxpayers won’t know whether the measure will be adopted until after the legislative session adjourns on April 29, according to the Hawaii Department of Taxation.That puts taxpayers in a bind. The state didn’t extend the tax deadline, which is currently April 20. Taxpayers likely won’t know what the final rules are when they file their state taxes.The state is urging taxpayers to file a state return without claiming the tax break.Zoom In IconArrows pointing outwards”If Hawaii does conform to any of the federal provisions that reduces the tax amount owed after you’ve already submitted your return, an overpayment may be claimed by filing an amended return,” according to the Department of Taxation.Taxpayers in such cases may strongly consider filing for a tax extension, Campo said.They’d still have to estimate and pay their taxes by the state tax deadline, but wouldn’t then incur the cost of filing an amended return later, he said.A similar dynamic may occur in other states, too.Arizona and Vermont, for example, are allowing residents to claim the tax break on state tax forms but haven’t yet officially adopted the federal rule, according to H&R Block. If they ultimately don’t, an amended return may be necessary. More

People walk by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on the morning that the music streaming service Spotify begins trading shares at the NYSE on April 3, 2018 in New York City.Spencer Platt | Getty ImagesThe New York Stock Exchange announced Monday it would launch “First Trade” NFTs, to memorialize the true first trade of six stocks on the public markets.NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are a type of digital asset created to track ownership of a virtual item using blockchain technology. Such unique items could be a piece of art or sports trading cards.During a company’s public debut, the exchange processes over 350 billion order, quote and trade messages across its markets on its busiest days, NYSE president Stacey Cunningham said in a LinkedIn post.Each message is recorded on the exchange’s digital ledger.”Only one of those messages marks the NYSE First Trade: the exact moment a company became public, creating an opportunity for others to share in their success,” Cunningham said. “The NYSE First Trade NFT memorializes that unique moment in a company’s history.”NYSE’s first class of NFTs represent the first trade of Spotify, which executed the inaugural direct listing on the exchange.In a direct listing, a company makes its debut by selling existing shares directly to the public instead of bringing in intermediaries.The exchange’s NFT offerings also include Snowflake, the biggest software IPO ever, as well as Unity, DoorDash, Roblox and Coupang, the largest initial public offering of 2021 so far.NFTs have boomed in popularity this year along with a rise in the values of digital currencies, like bitcoin and ether. The market is growing rapidly, with some digital collectibles being sold for millions of dollars. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey sold the first-ever tweet for over $2.9 billion on the “Valuables” platform run by blockchain company Cent. Meanwhile, auction house Christie’s sought bids on a virtual work from the artist Beeple which eventually sold for $69 million.Investors can access NYSE NFTs on crypto.comEnjoyed this article?For exclusive stock picks, investment ideas and CNBC global livestreamSign up for CNBC ProStart your free trial now— with reporting from CNBC’s Ryan Browne. More

In this article9988-HKQCOMCMGUALPLUGNUANUBERTSLAA Tesla logo on a Model S is photographed inside of a Tesla dealership in New York.Lucas Jackson | ReutersCheck out the companies making headlines in midday trading.Tesla — Shares of Tesla popped 3.7% after Canaccord Genuity upgraded the stock to buy, citing Tesla’s battery innovations. Canaccord also hiked its 12-month price target on Tesla to $1,071 per share from $419 per share. The new target implies a nearly 60% rally for the electric carmaker.Nuance Communications — Nuance’s share price rallied 16% in midday trading after Microsoft announced that it will buy the speech recognition company for $56 per share, about 23% above where its stock closed on Friday. The deal, another sign Microsoft is looking to grow via acquisitions, is valued at about $16 billion and about $19 billion including debt.Uber —Shares of the ride hailing giant rose 3.1% after posting record gross bookings in the month of March. Uber said its mobility segment, or ride-hailing business, posted its best month since March 2020, with an annualized run rate of $30 billion. That was up 9% from a month earlier.Alibaba — The U.S.-traded shares of the Chinese internet giant jumped 9.3% after Chinese regulators hit the company with a $2.8 billion fine. The fine amounts to roughly 4% of Alibaba’s 2019 revenue. The action is part of broader scrutiny of internet companies by Chinese regulators.United Airlines — Shares of the airline slumped 3.9% after United Airlines announced that it expected to report $3.2 billion in first-quarter revenue, down 66% from the same quarter in 2019. According to FactSet, Wall Street analysts were expecting $3.35 billion.Chipotle – The chain restaurant’s share price rose 0.6% after Raymond James upgraded the stock to outperform from market perform. The Wall Street firm said Chipotle’s sales have fully participated in the strengthening industry trends over the past tour weeks, adding there’s “significant upside” to stock prices. CNBC’s Jim Cramer said the stock is still a buy, even as it hits an all-time high.Qualcomm – The chip stock fell 2.2% after Evercore ISI downgraded the company to in line from outperform. Evercore said after Qualcomm’s triple-digit run since the Apple settlement, the lion’s share of the 5G smartphone upcycle is priced into the shares. Qualcomm and Apple settled a royalty and patent dispute in April 2019.Plug Power — Morgan Stanley resumed coverage of the hydrogen fuel cell company as equal weight, sending shares down more than 8%.1. The Wall Street firm said it sees “modest” stock price upside for Plug Power.— with reporting from CNBC’s Jesse Pound, Yun Li and Tom Franck.Enjoyed this article?For exclusive stock picks, investment ideas and CNBC global livestreamSign up for CNBC ProStart your free trial now More

Since launching more than a decade ago, robo-advisors – online investment services that offer financial advice driven by algorithms – have grown into an industry that managed $460 billion in 2020.That’s a 30% increase from 2019.Some analysts predict robo-advising will become a $1.2 trillion industry by 2024.”Investors historically have had two options when it comes to managing their investments. They could do it themselves through something like an online broker or you can work with a financial advisor,” said Brian Concannon, head of digital advisor at Vanguard.”Now, with the advent of robo-advisors, there’s a third option, and that’s to merge the benefits of professional money management and advice with the convenience of an all-digital application,” he said.Robo-advisors’ sudden rise to prominence was made possible due to massive interest and support from millennials and Gen Z. According to a recent survey by Vanguard, millennials were twice as likely as young baby boomers to consider using a robo-advisor for investments.”I believe that there are things that technology or algorithms can do better than humans can,” said Taylor Crane, a robo-advisor customer. “And I have no problem trusting a software to do that.”Skeptics do not expect robo-advisors to replace human advisors entirely in the near future.”Clearly, there’s always going to be a human element that’s missing,” said Jason Snipe, chief investment officer at Odyssey Capital Advisors. “My problem always will be the emotional response. Take a situation like last year when we’re going through Covid-19 and markets are moving a lot, dramatically. … You can’t talk to the technology, right?”To combat this, many robo-advisor companies including Betterment and Vanguard began providing the option of hybrid services that combine human and digital advice.”[Some] investors we see crave validation from a financial advisor,” said Concannon. “So for those investors, being able to pick up the phone and have a video conference with a financial advisor, have a discussion about their needs and wants, goes an incredibly long way to providing them the peace of mind that they so desperately need.”Time is on the side of the robo-advisory industry as the technology continues to improve and the younger generations accrue more wealth.”I think some combination of the two probably is where we are headed for in the future,” said Snipe. “I think the robo space has room to grow. I think it will obviously modify and change and become even more sophisticated.” More

A Darktrace cybersecurity software demonstration shows how a global problem can start with just one employee’s work station.Michael S. Williamson | The Washington Post | Getty ImagesLONDON — British cybersecurity start-up Darktrace said Monday that it plans to go public in London, defying fears that Deliveroo’s disappointing IPO could put other tech firms off listing in the city.The London-based firm’s platform uses artificial intelligence technology to detect and respond to cyber threats in a business’ IT systems. It says its self-learning AI can monitor threats in real time and come up with ways to strike back.Darktrace, founded in 2013 by a group of former intelligence experts and mathematicians, said it intends to float at least 20% of issued share capital in an initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange’s premium market. This would make it eligible for inclusion in benchmark indexes like the FTSE 100.”Our intention to list on the London Stock Exchange marks a major milestone in Darktrace’s history of rapid growth, and a historic day for the U.K.’s thriving technology sector,” said Poppy Gustafsson, Darktrace’s CEO and co-founder.”We are proud to be part of that tradition of British innovation, as the U.K. becomes a leading global centre for the development of AI,” she added.Darktrace’s IPO announcement comes despite concerns over the lackluster market debut of Deliveroo, the Amazon-backed food delivery company. Deliveroo shares plunged as much as 30% on its first day of trading, making it one of the worst London IPOs for a large company.Deliveroo’s IPO flop also threatened to embarrass U.K. officials, who threw their weight behind the company as it announced plans to go public in the city. London is looking to relax its listings requirements in a bid to attract more high-growth tech companies.But some analysts said Deliveroo’s woes may be limited to the company, which has been dogged by employment rights concerns, rather than a broader indication of trouble for London tech listings. Deliveroo said it’s “just starting life as a public company” and is “confident” in its ability to deliver long-term returns for shareholders.Darktrace reported revenue of $199.1 million for the year ended June. 30, 2020, up 45% from $137 million in the same period a year earlier. Losses totalled $28.7 million, though this was down from the $34.7 million Darktrace lost in its 2019 fiscal year.Darktrace’s biggest investor is Invoke Capital, the venture fund of U.K. entrepreneur Mike Lynch. Lynch currently faces the threat of potential extradition to the U.S. over fraud charges related to the sale of Autonomy — the software firm he founded — to Hewlett-Packard in 2011 for $11 billion. Lynch denies any wrongdoing.Gustafsson and Chief Strategy Officer Nicole Eagan both used to work at Autonomy. Darktrace shares the same office building as Invoke in London, but says that Lynch has no direct involvement with the day-to-day running of the company.The firm, which was last valued at $1.65 billion in its last private financing round, has tapped Jefferies, Berenberg, KKR Capital Markets to lead the IPO if it goes ahead, with Needham & Company and Piper Sandler acting as joint bookrunners. It’ll use funds raised from the float to develop new products and strengthen its balance sheet. More

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome PowellKevin Lamarque | ReutersDespite what he sees as a rapidly recovering economy, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Sunday reaffirmed the central bank’s commitment to keep loose monetary policy on place.That includes a statement of near-certainty that interest rates won’t be going anywhere as inflation remains tame and millions of Americans remain in need of assistance as the nation rebuilds from the damage caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.”I think it’s highly unlikely that we would raise rates anything like this year,” Powell told “60 Minutes” journalist Scott Pelley in a broadcast Sunday evening.”I’m in a position to guarantee that the Fed will do everything we can to support the economy for as long as it takes to complete the recovery,” he added.That support includes near zero short-term borrowing rates and $120 billion a month in bond purchases put in place following a sharp rebound from the plunge in activity between February and April 2020.Though the economy has recovered more than 13 million jobs since the depths of the crisis, there remain about 9 million more still sidelined. As states and localities have loosened restrictions, more people have gone back to work.But Powell said more needs to be done, particularly for those in the lower income brackets who have suffered the most.”We don’t have the answer to everything, but the job that we do for the benefit of the public is incredibly important, and we do understand that if we get things right, we can really help people,” he said. “If the people who are at the margins of the economy are doing well, then the rest of it will take care of itself.”In their most recent economic projections, Fed officials saw GDP rising in 2021 by 6.5%, which would be the fastest growth rate since 1984.”We and a lot of private sector forecasters see strong growth and strong job creation starting right now,” Powell said. “Really, the outlook has brightened substantially.”That doesn’t mean there are not substantial risks.Powell said he worries about rising Covid cases, and said people should continue to wear masks and physically distance to keep the recovery going. While he said he does not worry about financial system stability, he is concerned about ongoing cyberattacks that one day could cause serious damage.One thing he’s not worried about is inflation, which is running around 1.6% now and remains well below the Fed 2% target. The central bank has pledged to keep rates low even if inflation would run somewhat above the target rate for a period of time.When it comes to inflation, Powell said he “like to see it on track to move moderately above 2% for some time. When we get that, that’s when we’ll raise rates.”Enjoyed this article?For exclusive stock picks, investment ideas and CNBC global livestreamSign up for CNBC ProStart your free trial now More

YET ANOTHER bank is preparing to face the music over alleged failings in its efforts to curb flows of dirty money. In the coming weeks NatWest, one of Britain’s largest lenders, is set to appear in court in London to respond to charges that it failed to properly scrutinise a gold-dealing client that deposited £365m ($502m) with the bank—£264m of it in cash.NatWest (which has said it is co-operating with the investigation) is the latest in a long line of banks to be accused of falling short in the fight against dirty money. Last year global lenders were hit with $10.4bn in penalties for money-laundering violations, an increase of more than 80% on 2019, according to Fenergo, a compliance-software firm. In January Capital One, an American bank, was fined $390m for failing to report thousands of suspicious transactions. Danske Bank is still dealing with the fallout of a scandal that erupted in 2018. Over $200bn of potentially dirty money was washed through the Danish lender’s small Estonian branch while executives missed or ignored a sea of red flags.These cases suggest that banks remain the Achilles heel in the global war on money-laundering, despite the reams of regulations aimed at turning them into front­line soldiers in that conflict. However, closer examination suggests that the global anti-money-laundering (AML) system has serious structural flaws, largely because governments have outsourced to the private sector much of the policing they should have been doing themselves. A study published last year by Ronald Pol, a financial-crime expert, concluded that the global AML system could be “the world’s least effective policy experiment”, and that compliance costs for banks and other businesses could be more than 100 times higher than the amount of laundered loot seized.Red-tape revolutionMoney-laundering was not even a crime across much of the world until the 1980s. Since then countries from Afghanistan to Zambia have been arm-twisted, particularly by America, into passing laws. This effort intensified after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 and the passage of America’s Patriot Act, which targeted the money trails of those financing terrorists and other criminals.This has turned AML compliance into a huge part of what banks do and created large new bureaucracies. It is not unusual for firms such as HSBC or JPMorgan Chase to have 3,000-5,000 specialists focused on fighting financial crime, and more than 20,000 overall in risk and compliance.The AML push has succeeded in stamping out the most pernicious practices, such as using shell banks (those with no real customers) in sunny places to launder suitcases stuffed with drug money. But criminals haven’t been forced to get particularly creative: it is not much more difficult today than it was 20 years ago to rinse dirty money by setting up a shell company, disguising the loot flowing through it as legitimate revenue and persuading an established bank to process it.As a result, the numbers tell of a war being lost. The “Global Threat Assessment”, a report by John Cusack, an ex-chair of the Wolfsberg Group, an association of banks that helps develop AML standards, estimates that $5.8trn-worth of financial crime was perpetrated in 2018—equivalent to 6.7% of global GDP. Statistics on how much is intercepted by authorities are patchy. A decade-old estimate by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime put it at just 0.2% of the total. In 2016 Europol estimated the confiscation rate in Europe to be a higher but still paltry 1.1%.Some experts think the success rate may have fallen in recent years, in part because of the rise of “trade-based money-laundering”—which moves dodgy money into the legitimate economy by playing tricks with paperwork for cross-border trade. The covid-19 pandemic, too, has boosted opportunities for financial ne’er-do-wells. Criminals have set up shell companies to exploit vast, poorly policed government-aid schemes. In Britain, the authorities have received more than 50,000 reports of potential misuse of its “Bounce Back Loans” and furlough schemes.The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the intergovernmental body that sets global AML standards, admits to problems with the system. Last October its president, Marcus Pleyer, sounded an exasperated note, accusing the “vast majority” of countries of failing to tackle money-laundering. Some countries have been able to achieve solid marks in the organisation’s assessments by passing nice-looking AML laws, only to water them down later, or fail to implement key provisions. One offender is the United Arab Emirates, where weak enforcement has helped Dubai become a haven for corrupt capital. But America and Britain also look to game the FATF process, albeit less egregiously.Global efforts to stamp out money-laundering have, if anything, waned over the past five years, says Robert Barrington, a professor of anti-corruption practice at the University of Sussex. In 2016 David Cameron, Britain’s then prime minister, hosted a global anti-corruption summit, and other governments queued up to back the cause. But it proved a false dawn. Britain became distracted by Brexit. In America, President Donald Trump showed scant leadership on the issue. Russia and China have stymied efforts to co-ordinate global anti-corruption efforts.Three big problems hobble the fight against financial crime: a lack of transparency; a lack of collaboration; and a lack of resources. Start with transparency. Investigators can struggle to identify the real, “beneficial”, owners of shell companies, who often hide behind legal nominees.Some progress has been made in increasing visibility. Britain launched a public register of company owners in 2016, spurring several others to follow suit. Britain’s offshore satellites, such as the British Virgin Islands and Jersey, have been arm-twisted into setting up registers or strengthening existing ones. Late last year American lawmakers passed a law requiring ownership data on firms registered at state level, including in Delaware’s incorporation factories, to be held in a federal register.However, many countries still eschew registers, and those that have them have encountered problems. In Britain, for instance, criminals have been willing to risk filing false information, or none at all, given the modest penalties for doing so. Hong Kong, meanwhile, plans to scale back the details company owners must disclose on its register.The FATF is reviewing its standard on beneficial-ownership transparency with a view to making it tougher; the current version says merely that “competent authorities” should have access to such information “in a timely fashion”. But getting its 39 core members—from America and the EU to China and Russia—to agree on a new text will be difficult.The second problem, lack of collaboration, hobbles governments’ work with each other, and with banks on the front line. The big money-laundering schemes are sophisticated and transnational, while anti-laundering efforts remain balkanised. Information-sharing between governments is improving, thanks to co-operation among “financial-intelligence units”, national centres that collect data on suspicious transactions. But the “mutual legal assistance” system, which countries investigating crimes use to request information from each other, is clunky.As for data flowing to and from banks, the benefits of sharing are indisputable. “The value of information coming from a network of banks is thousands of times higher than the information any one bank has, because you can see not just where the money came from, but where it went, and where it went from there, and so on. It gives you a picture of the network,” says the head of a large international bank. Unfortunately, the level of collaboration is “terrible”. America does best, thanks to the Patriot Act, but even there information-sharing is “on a tiny scale”, with anything more requiring a warrant from a judge, “which is hard if you don’t know what the crime is yet”. Britain is in second place, he says, with “about 30%” of the data-sharing done in America. And in third place? “No one.”A daunting obstacle to sharing information is data-privacy laws, which in many countries prevent banks from passing information to authorities, particularly those in other countries. Some big banks have lobbied for exceptions to be made for AML, but “governments don’t see it as a legislative priority”, says an executive at another bank.The third difficulty, a dearth of resources, stems from the fact that white-collar crime is less visible than violent crime. Spending on curbing the latter goes down better with the public. In Britain, fraud makes up more than a third of reported crime, yet gets less than 1% of police resources in terms of officers. Banks can spend all they like on AML, but the criminals won’t end up in court if governments fail to invest in policing and prosecution.Many crime-fighting agencies lack the funding to properly analyse the torrent of so-called “suspicious-activity reports” banks file when they spot potentially dodgy transactions. SARs are a cornerstone of the current system. But banks file too many low-quality or unnecessary reports because the system incentivises them to cover their backs rather than apply sensible risk criteria. Globally they file millions of SARs a year; in Britain alone regulators received over 573,000 in the 2019-20 financial year.All this suggests that governments need to work harder collectively to make the AML system fit for purpose. “Blaming banks for not ‘properly’ implementing anti-money-laundering laws is a convenient fiction,” Mr Pol’s report concluded. It also gives an unfair pass to the non-bank actors that enable corruption. While fines for banks with poor AML controls have risen relentlessly, lawyers who set up dodgy shell companies, accountants who sign off on their fishy filings and the like have been getting away with slaps on the wrist. Britain’s revenues and customs agency, for instance, supervises more than 30,000 accountants, estate agents and other businesses for money-laundering purposes; in the 2019-20 financial year it issued just 31 fines, averaging £290,000. Governments also need to get to grips with the AML implications of cryptocurrencies, and the firms and exchanges that hawk them. A recent report by the Bank for International Settlements warned of “a critical need for swift and global implementation of international standards”.Activists who campaign to fix the cracks in the global AML architecture are pinning much hope on the Biden administration, which has said that it views the fight against corruption as a national-security issue and therefore a priority. Whether it can work more profitably than its predecessor with Europe, which is overhauling AML oversight in the wake of the Danske debacle, remains to be seen. Hopes that China can be persuaded to co-operate are not high. Either way, bankers should probably brace themselves for another beating. More

In this article@ND.1@SP.1@DJ.1A Wall Street street sign is displayed in front of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., on Thursday, Feb. 11, 2021.Bloomberg | Getty ImagesFutures contracts tied to the major U.S. stock indexes ticked lower during the overnight session Sunday evening, suggesting Wall Street could see muted trading on Monday after reaching fresh records last week.Dow futures lost 35 points, while contracts tied to the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 were down 0.2% and 0.3%, respectively.The tepid movement in the futures market on Sunday followed yet another record close for the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Friday, when it gained nearly 300 points to end at 33,800.6. The S&P 500 gained 0.8% and hit its third straight record close.Stocks linked to the recovering economy led many of last week’s gains as vaccinations efforts throughout the U.S. accelerated. Both the Dow and the S&P 500 climbed at least 2% last week. The Nasdaq rallied 3.1% over the same period as some traders snapped up big tech names.The first-quarter earnings reporting season begins this week, with expectations set for broadly positive news and an uptrend for U.S. equities thanks to a recovering economy. Many of the nation’s largest banks, including Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase will this week report results for the three months ended March 31.The coming week is also packed with Federal Reserve speeches and key economic data including a hotly anticipated inflation reading Tuesday, when the consumer price index is released.The central bank’s chairman, Jerome Powell, kicked off the week of multiple Fed appearances with an interview that aired Sunday evening on CBS News’ “60 Minutes.” During the interview, Powell reiterated that the Fed wants to see inflation rise above its 2% for an extended period before officials move to raise interest rates.”We want to see inflation move up to 2% — and we mean that on a sustainable basis, we don’t mean just tap the base once,” he said. “But then we’d also like to see it on track to move moderately above 2% for some time.”He added that amid an accelerated Covid-19 vaccine rollout and strong fiscal support, the U.S. economy appears to be at a turning point. “What we’re seeing now is really an economy that seems to be at an inflection point,” he said.Powell will also speak Wednesday at an Economic Club of Washington event.Investors will also keep an eye on President Joe Biden’s effort to advance a major infrastructure proposal known as the American Jobs Plan. Biden, who with other Democrats promised significant an infrastructure overhaul in the 2020 elections, will meet with a bipartisan group of lawmakers on Monday to try to persuade Capitol Hill to back the $2 trillion package. Congress will return to Washington this week and be in session for the first time since Biden debuted his proposal, which earmarks hundreds of billions of dollars for roads, bridges, airports, broadband, electric vehicles, housing and job training.”A positive fiscal shock, strong housing tailwinds, a large stock of savings, and the Fed letting inflation run above 2% mark a fundamentally different economic backdrop,” Evercore ISI equity strategist Dennis DeBusschere wrote in an email. “US data is expected to be strong this week and US vaccinations are increasing. Real rates are still too negative and are headed higher, supporting risk-on factor outperformance.”The president’s plan would also increase the corporate tax rate to 28% and crack down on other overseas tax avoidance strategies.Enjoyed this article?For exclusive stock picks, investment ideas and CNBC global livestreamSign up for CNBC ProStart your free trial now More