NEW YORK: The benchmark S&P 500 scaled a fresh record high on Monday, extending a bull-market run into a new week on a boost from some megacap and chip stocks, while corporate earnings and clues on interest-rate cuts continued to top investors’ radar.
The S&P 500 surpassed Friday’s record level and hit an intraday high of 4,868.41 points, confirming a bull market after closing at an all-time high in the previous session since its October 2022 closing low.
Megacaps such as Alphabet, Meta Platforms and Apple added between 0.5% and 1.1%, while chip stocks Nvidia, Broadcom and Micron Technology advanced between 0.6% and 2%, taking the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index up by 0.2% to a new all-time intraday high.
“We’re going to see a fair amount of volatility ... any economic slowdown may put a cap on the markets and with inflation still being an issue, you may also see the Fed standing pat a lot longer than the markets think,” said Paul Nolte, senior wealth adviser and market strategist at Murphy & Sylvest.
Wall Street had stalled at the start of 2024 after the prior year’s stellar run, as investors reassessed a quicker start to interest-rate cuts in light of mixed economic data and Federal Reserve policymakers playing down such bets.
Traders have sharply scaled back their expectations of an at least 25-basis-point rate cut first arriving in March, with focus now more on May with a 53% chance, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch Tool.
Investors will parse the personal consumption expenditure (PCE) index - the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, S&P Global PMI readings and an advance fourth-quarter GDP print this week to assess the central bank’s next policy decision when it meets on Jan. 31.
Big-ticket earnings this week from Netflix, Tesla , Abbott Laboratories, Intel and Johnson & Johnson, among others, will also be watched for insights into the health of corporate America.
United Airlines Holdings, Brown & Brown and Zions Bancorp are set to detail earnings after market close.
So far, 84.6% of the S&P 500 companies that have reported results have surpassed earnings expectations, LSEG data showed on Friday, compared with the 93.1% beat seen in the previous week.
At 11:51 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 120.08 points, or 0.32%, at 37,983.88, the S&P 500 was up 12.98 points, or 0.27%, at 4,852.79, and the Nasdaq Composite was up 67.29 points, or 0.44%, at 15,378.26.
The S&P index recorded 79 new 52-week highs and three new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 144 new highs and 97 new lows.
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