The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite both saw their biggest monthly gains since July last year
Stock futures were little changed in overnight trading Sunday after the S&P 500 hit a fresh 2023 peak after a five-week winning streak.
Futures on the DJIA and S&P 500 futures were both flat. Nasdaq 100 futures dropped 0.2 per cent.
Shares of Alaska Airlines dropped more than 1 per cent in overnight trading after news that it agreed to acquire rival Hawaiian Airlines in a $1.9 billion deal.
The large-cap equity index surged to the highest level since March 2022 on Friday, bringing its YTD gains to nearly 20 per cent. The blue-chip Dow has also gained for five consecutive weeks and is 9.4 per cent higher for the year. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite has gained 37 per cent in 2023.
The latest gain came as investors increasingly bet that the Fed will stay put at its policy meeting this month and begin cutting rates in 2024. The market turned a blind eye to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s effort to tame rate-cut expectations, saying it’s “premature” to expect easing in policy.
Some investors see the rally as unsustainable.
At present things are very overdone, Adam Crisafulli, founder of Vital Knowledge, said in a note. The conversation on inflation, growth, the Fed, and earnings are all too binary, reductive, and facile.
November was the best month for the Dow since October 2022. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite both saw their biggest monthly gains since July last year.
Investors are awaiting the November jobs report, scheduled for release on Friday, for confirmation the Federal Reserve is done raising rates. Economists polled by Dow Jones expect the economy to have added 190,000 payrolls.