ZINGER KEY POINTS

• Wall Street braces for a packed Friday as earnings, inflation data, and sentiment figures converge after a volatile trading week.

• Producer inflation and consumer expectations could sway Fed policy as inflationary pressures remain front and center.

As Wall Street wraps up one of its wildest weeks in recent memory, all eyes are locked on Friday, a session poised to unleash a wave of market-moving catalysts.

After Thursday's brutal sell-off in risk assets, investors are gearing up for a showdown featuring big bank earnings, fresh inflation data, and a critical read on consumer sentiment.

The S&P 500, tracked via the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, is clinging to a 2.8% weekly gain, eyeing its strongest performance of 2025. That includes Wednesday's historic 9.5% surge, the index's largest one-day leap since the 2008 financial crisis.

Big Banks Kick Off Q1 Earnings Season

Some of the country's biggest financial institutions will kick off the first-quarter earnings season.

JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley, BlackRock Inc., Wells Fargo & Co., and Bank of New York Mellon are all slated to report earnings before the market opens Friday.

Here's what the median Wall Street analyst is expecting, according to Benzinga Pro:

Earnings beats or misses will surely drive immediate action, but investors are zooming in on forward guidance, particularly commentary around how tariffs and uncertainty could affect credit conditions, loan growth, and capital markets.

"Mounting uncertainty from the economic impact of tariffs could result in slower loan growth, a flatter curve, weaker capital markets, and a deterioration in credit quality," said Richard Ramsden, senior analyst at Goldman Sachs, in a recent note.

Producer Prices, Consumer Inflation Expectations Take Center Stage In Fed Debate

On Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the March Producer Price Index (PPI)—a key gauge of wholesale inflation and an increasingly critical signal for the Fed's rate path.

Consensus forecasts see headline PPI rising 3.3% year-over-year, slightly hotter than February's 3.2%. On a monthly basis, prices are expected to bounce by 0.2% after a flat February reading. More crucially, core PPI (excluding food and energy) is projected to climb 3.6% annually, up from 3.4%, with a monthly rebound of 0.3% after a 0.1% dip the prior month.

Hotter-than-expected readings could raise alarms that U.S. producers are already pricing in the inflationary effects of tariffs, fueling concerns at the Fed about a future pass-through of those costs to consumers.

At 10:00 a.m. ET, attention shifts to Main Street, as the University of Michigan's preliminary April consumer sentiment survey provides a timely snapshot of how everyday Americans are feeling in the face of growing economic uncertainty.

Economists anticipate a dip in the sentiment index to 54.5 from March's 57, marking the weakest read since July 2022. But the inflation expectation components will be under the spotlight.

Last month, year-ahead inflation expectations shot up to 5%, the highest since mid-2022. Any further acceleration could force the Fed to reconsider its path toward policy easing.