Key Events
Pinned Post
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was on course to build on its record-breaking run on Monday, while Japan’s flagship index surged to a new high following Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s landslide victory in parliamentary elections.
Futures tracking the Dow rose 94 points, or 0.2%. S&P 500 futures climbed 0.2%, and contracts tied to the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 were also 0.2% higher.
The three gauges all rebounded on Friday, with the Dow topping 50,000 for the first time ever. Dip-buying in tech snowballed into a full-blown surge for the market after the University of Michigan’s preliminary consumer sentiment index topped expectations, signaling that the economy remains robust.
That capped a wild week for markets. Before Friday’s rally, stocks had slumped as investors fretted that artificial intelligence could hit software companies’ profits and worried about a surge in capital spending by Google owner Alphabet and online retailer Amazon.
“Investor stress has run high in recent days, even though sentiment turned around on Friday…
After days of volatile trading, the question now is whether it will continue,” Kathleen Brooks, research director at the foreign-exchange brokerage XTB, said.
Economic data releases are likely to dominate the headlines on Wall Street this week, with January nonfarm payrolls data, consumer-price inflation, and retail sales figures due out.
Investors will also be keeping an eye on Japanese asset prices after Takaichi’s thumping win, which paves the way for higher government spending. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 surged 3.9% on Monday to close at a record high, while the yield on the 10-year Japanese government bond ticked up 6 basis points to 2.29%.
The dollar slipped 0.2% against a weighted basket of its peers in early trading. Gold prices jumped 1.4% to $5,049 an ounce.
Brent and West Texas Intermediate oil prices dropped about 1% as ongoing talks between the U.S. and Iran eased fears about crude supply disruptions.
Bitcoin, the large-cap cryptocurrency that tends to reflect broader risk sentiment, fell 1.2% over the past 24 hours to $69,773. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note climbed 2 basis points to 4.24%.
