U.S. equities slid lower for a second straight week as investors assessed the potential for the Federal Reserve to begin scaling back accommodative policy at upcoming meetings amid continued robust U.S. economic data and rising prices.

The three major U.S. stock averages rallied in the last two sessions of the week as inflation fears eased from prior hand wringing, but it wasn’t enough to offset the drop from earlier in the week. On Friday, the Nasdaq rose 2.3%, the S&P 500 was up 1.5%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average moved up 1.1%.

Despite an underwhelming employment report on Friday, U.S. equities edged higher last week driven by continued focus on reopening momentum and rising corporate earnings expectations amid strong first quarter results. For the week, the S&P 500 and Dow Jones gained 1.3% and 2.7% respectively, but the tech heavy Nasdaq Composite fell -1.5% as the rotation out of expensive, high-growth stocks into cyclical stocks leveraged to the economic reopening gained traction

U.S. equity markets broadly moved sideways last week but closed out the month of April with the highest monthly gain since November amid a streak of strong earnings reports and continued signs of a robust U.S. economic recovery powered by stimulus and the vaccine rollout. The S&P 500 gained 5.3% for the month of April, bringing its year-to-date performance to 11.8%, while the Nasdaq Composite and Dow Jones advanced 5.4% and 2.8% for the month, respectively, with tech stocks retaking the lead on strong earnings results.

Despite another strong week of corporate earnings announcements, U.S. equity markets took a pause from their year-to-date surge last week as market participants digested the announcement of President Biden’s proposal to increase the capital gains tax rate for high income households and monitored concerning global trends in Covid-19 cases. The major U.S. equity indices ended the week in the red but recouped most of their losses on Friday following robust economic data including indications of growing demand for the U.S. service sector and a 20% month-over-month increase in new home sales in March. The S&P 500 ended -0.1% lower for the week and the Dow Jones and Nasdaq Composite were down -0.4% and -0.3%, respectively.