U.S. stock futures were steady early Monday, pausing after the S&P 500 advanced for the 16th week in 18 to reach a new peak.
What’s happening
-
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures
YM00,
-0.21%
fell 75 points, or 0.2%, to 39067. -
S&P 500 futures
ES00,
-0.14%
dropped 2 points, or 0%, to 5144. -
Nasdaq-100 futures
NQ00,
-0.09%
increased 26 points, or 0.1%, to 18364.
On Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA
rose 91 points, or 0.23%, to 39087, the S&P 500
SPX
increased 41 points, or 0.8%, to 5137, and the Nasdaq Composite
COMP
gained 183 points, or 1.14%, to 16275, with both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite ending at a record.
The S&P 500 rose 1% last week and has gained 8% this year.
What’s driving markets
There’s a busy slate of events on tap for this week as investors look to see whether anything can derail the rally. Fed Chair Jerome Powell will be on Capitol Hill this week for two days of Congressional testimony, as the nonfarm payrolls report gets released on Friday.
“Bears appear to remain in capitulation mode, nervous investors seem to be finding confidence to stay in stocks, and the leveraged crowd appears to be learning to accept the likelihood that the Fed has no intention of cutting rates soon with last week’s PCE deflator data for January showing inflation still sticky and the central bank’s inflation target rate still at some distance away,” said John Stoltzfus, chief investment strategist at Oppenheimer Asset Management.
Bank of America became the latest Wall Street firm to lift its price target, now seeing a year-end level of 5,400 for the S&P 500. The increase nonetheless was accompanied by a warning that the likelihood of a near-term pullback is high.
It’s more than just U.S. stocks rallying: Bitcoin
BTCUSD,
surged past $65,000 and the Nikkei 225
JP:NIK
zoomed past 40,000, while gold
GC00,
drifted lower after ending Friday at a record high.
