Blog Posts by Rebecca Stropoli

It was a tough week for the IRS (and gold) but not so for stocks: Friday capped four straight weeks of gains for Wall Street as the Dow and S&P 500 climbed to fresh new highs, continuing the "relentless rally" that has given investors a fantastic year -- in just six months.

What should headline-watchers and investors be looking out for next week? Here are some of the highlights ahead, including two very special Yahoo! Finance events.

Monday, May 20

• At least two more hearings on the IRS scandal regarding targeting of conservative groups will take place this week
• Earnings: Campbell Soup (CPB), TiVo (TIVO)
• Fed Speaker: Charles Evans
• Breakout segments scheduled: The fear of Fed tapering is overblown: Don Hays; Don't hope for gold and silver recoveries: Louise Yamada; The Japanese economy: Jim Rogers
• Daily Ticker segments scheduled: 8:30 am — Don't Piss off Jamie Dimon: He's America's best banker (Howard Davidowitz); Jim Rogers on the commodities supercycle

Tuesday, May 21

• JPMorgan (JPM

Ruckus Wireless (RKUS) stock was sinking on Tuesday, down 25% in afternoon trading after it reported lighter-than-expected first-quarter earnings and a revenue outlook that disappointed investors.

Back in November, Yahoo! Finance profiled the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based wi-fi equipment maker during another rough day for the company: Its IPO. Ruckus, whose logo features a barking canine, touted its debut on its own website that day, declaring, "Who Let the Dogs Out? The New York Stock Exchange, That's Who." Unfortunately, that sentiment was reflected in Ruckus's dog of a debut, as the shares ended the day down 18% from their $15 offer price.

Before Tuesday's rout, however, Ruckus was actually up more than 25% from its IPO price, closing Monday at $19 a share. Still, the stock had sunk 17% year-to-date and 11% over the past three months. And the shares had the prologue to their largest one-day drop ever during after-hours trading Monday, as the company reported earnings per share of 2 cents

What better way to celebrate TGIF than to have Wall Street cap the week by hitting fresh new highs? Forget "sell in May," at least for now; the S&P 500 on Friday soared past 1,600 for the first time ever and the Dow touched 15,000 in early trade, ultimately closing just 27 points below that milestone. This came after Friday's jobs numbers blew past expectations (while hardly setting the BLS on fire) and following a week in which central banks, housing data, earnings and a historic Apple (AAPL) debt sale were in focus.

So why do we continue to rally in the face of "eh" economic data, higher taxes, the sequester and a dragging euro zone? What is fueling this most "unloved" rally? Are U.S. equities just the best choice out of a not-so-great bunch, which includes sliding metals and low-yielding bonds? Is the "spring swoon" yet to come?

Well, as Breakout's own Jeff Macke says, you might just want to "shut up and stay long" because "sometimes a bullish market is just a bullish market."

And

All eyes have been on Boston this past week following the tragic Marathon bombings on Monday. Friday brought a historic lockdown for the city amid a dramatic manhunt.

It has been hard for news junkies to focus on much else this week, but the rout on Wall Street and massive plunge in gold were dominating financial news headlines on Monday before the bombing. Now we're ending a week that has been the worst on Wall Street yet this year; the S&P 500, down 2.1%, hasn't seen a performance this weak since last November.

Next week will be another big one for earnings, with Apple (which closed below $400 this week for the first time since 2011) in keen focus. We'll also see a slew of housing data and get a look at first estimates for Q1 GDP. And, of course, we'll be following any new developments in Boston.

Here are some key things to look out for over the next week:

Friday, April 19-Sunday, April 21: IMF and World Bank spring meetings take place in DC

Monday, April 22

• Key earnings:

A horde of penguins took over the New York Stock Exchange Friday morning as SeaWorld representatives rang the opening bell to herald the company’s entry into the public waters of Wall Street.

More than three years after its $2.3 billion sale by Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD) to private-equity giant Blackstone (BX), SeaWorld (SEAS) is trading on the NYSE after raising a reported $702 million in one of the largest IPOs of the year. In its first minutes of trade, the stock is up 15% from its offer price of $27, which was at the top of a range starting at $24.

SeaWorld sold 10 million shares and Blackstone an additional 16 million, more than the 10 million originally slated. The underwriters, including Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, have a 30-day option to sell an additional 3.9 million shares at the offer price. The deal values SeaWorld at just above $2.5 billion. This debut is part of a busy week for IPOs, which included New York-based grocery chain Fairway (FWM) on Wednesday.

The

Another week on Wall Street and more records shattered as the S&P 500 finally found its way past the 2007 intraday high it hit in October of 2007. While stocks ended Friday on a flat note, both the S&P and the Dow saw their best weekly performances of 2013 so far (as commodities tanked) and, on Thursday, ended at fresh all-time highs. As our senior columnist Michael Santoli points out in Friday's column, "The [S&P 500] is up 11% so far this year, more than the average annual gain through documented history."

What can throw a wrench into this (arguably) "unloved," low-volume rally?

Well, much could hinge on earnings results from next week's jam-packed week, in which no less than 74 S&P 500 companies will report. Financials will be a major focus following Friday's reports from JPMorgan (JPM) and Morgan Stanley (MS), which failed to impress investors once they dug below the surface of their analyst beats.

And of course Monday brings our favorite national holiday: Tax Day in America. We've

The second homebuilder to go public this year was trading higher Wednesday, with Taylor Morrison's (TMHC) shares rising 5% on the NYSE after pricing at $22 the previous evening.

If all goes according to plan, it won't be the last. William Lyon Homes filed to go public  -- and raise up to $200 million -- on Tuesday. TRI Pointe Homes (TPH), the first homebuilder to go public since the pre-housing bust year of 2004, started trading in January.

The return of the builders to Wall Street, along with the general rise of these stocks over the past year, comes as data increasingly point to a housing market rebound, albeit one with plenty of caution thrown in. (Click here for our senior columnist Michael Santoli's take on homebuilder stocks as "a poor risk-reward bargain for long-term holders.")

Meanwhile, with a rash of recent pricings and some highly anticipated upcoming debuts, such as SeaWorld (which could make one of the largest IPO splashes of 2013), it's time to update our IPO scorecard.