Wall Street stocks opened Monday trading with gains as investors focused on the Federal Reserve’s final monetary policy decision of the year, scheduled for release later this week.
Markets are strongly positioned for the US central bank to announce another interest rate cut when the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) concludes its meeting on Wednesday. While the expected rate reduction is largely priced in by the stock market, the primary focus for investors will be on the signals provided by Fed Chair Jerome Powell.
Traders will closely scrutinize Powell’s press conference and the FOMC’s updated economic projections for any indication regarding the future trajectory of monetary policy and the pace of potential rate adjustments into the next year.
At the opening bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 16.5 points, or 0.03%, to 47,971.51. The S&P 500 rose 4.8 points, or 0.07%, to 6,875.2, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 60.1 points, or 0.25%, to 23,638.217.
Key Stock Movers
Shares of Warner Bros Discovery jumped 7.0%, while Paramount Skydance climbed 2.4.% after Paramount launched an all-cash bid to acquire WBD worth $108.4 billion, challenging Netflix’ acquisition announced last week.
Netflix stock dropped 2.9%.
IBM stock rose 1% after the tech giant announced it will purchase US data management company Confluent for $11 billion.
