U.S. stocks opened slightly lower Monday, pausing after the S&P 500 advanced for the 16th week in 18 to reach a new peak.
What’s happening
-
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA
fell 169 points, or 0.4%, to 38,019. -
The S&P 500
SPX
was down 6 points, or 0.1%, at 5,131. -
The Nasdaq Composite
COMP
was off 23 points, or 0.1%, at 16,252.
The S&P 500 rose 1% last week and has gained 7.7% this year, posting its 15th record finish of 2024 on Friday. The Nasdaq last week returned to record territory last week, posting its second straight all-time high finish on Friday.
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.
Source link
