U.S. stocks rose early Monday, on track for a fourth consecutive day of gains, as traders look ahead to inflation data later in the week.
How are stocks trading
-
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
+0.84%
rose 127 points, or 0.4%, to 32,278. -
The S&P 500
SPX,
+1.05%
was up 25 points, or 0.6%, at 4,091. -
The Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
+1.14%
advanced 76 points, or 0.6%, to 12,189.
Major indexes on Friday snapped a streak of three straight weekly declines. The Dow posted a 2.7% weekly rise, while the S&P 500 rose 3.7%, and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 4.1%.
What’s driving markets
The positive mood from the last several days was continuing into the new session. The risk-on tone extended to currencies, where the dollar pulled further back from recent highs.
The latest equity rebound, with the S&P 500 up 4.1% since last Tuesday’s close, suggests investors now appear comfortable with the prospect of a 75 basis point interest rate rise by the Federal Reserve at the conclusion of its meeting on September 21.
There is also hope among bulls that the August U.S. consumer prices report due Tuesday will show a negative reading month-on-month, helping cement expectations that inflation has peaked and the Fed is unlikely to hike borrowing costs beyond the 4% level currently priced by markets. Producer prices data will be released on Wednesday.
“The latest market optimism could be explained by hope to see a second month of softening inflation in the U.S. at this week’s CPI release,” said Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote Bank in a morning note.
“If the data is soft enough, or ideally softer than expected, the equities will likely continue pushing higher this week as well. If, however, the data is not as soft as expected, or worse, if we see a higher figure than last month’s read, then last week’s gains in equities will likely be quickly given back,” Ozkardeskaya added.
Jonathan Krinsky, chief market technician at BTIG, noted that technical factors had helped sentiment but that gains may prove fragile given seasonal headwinds and if the dollar and bond yields did not continue to retreat.
“Bears fumbled on the goal line as they tried to break under 3,900 last week, but the game is not over yet. We see downside risk as we head into the seasonally weak second part of September. While the dollar and rates paused their ascent, there was no reversal and 10-year real rates actually closed at fresh 52-week highs.,” said Krinsky.
The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield
TMUBMUSD10Y,
was down 4.3 basis points to 3.276% and the ICE U.S. Dollar Index
DXY,
was off 0.8%.
