Stock market today: Wall Street heads higher, again, on heels of last week's record

Fresh off last week's record, Wall Street is poised to open with gains Monday as corporate earnings season kicks off.

Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 0.2% and futures for the S&P 500 rose 0.4%.

Wall Street’s recent run-up has been driven in part by hopes for rate cuts with U.S. inflation on the decline. Treasury yields have already relaxed significantly on expectations for rate cuts, and that helped the stock market’s rally accelerate sharply in November.

The Fed has hinted that rate cuts are coming, though some officials have indicated they may begin later than the market is hoping for.

Shares of farm giant Archer Daniels Midland tumbled 15% in premarket trading Monday after the company put its top financial executive on administrative leave and postponed the release of its annual earnings report which was scheduled for Tuesday.

NuStar Energy climbed 26% after the company announced it was being acquired by Sunoco in a $7.3 billion all-stock deal. Sunoco slipped 3% before the bell.

Earnings season gets under way after the bell when United Airlines posts quarterly and annual financial results.

France’s CAC 40 added 0.5%, Germany’s DAX went up 0.4% and Britain’s FTSE 100 was essentially flat.

In Asia, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index gained 1.7% to 36,546.95. The Bank of Japan started a two-day policy meeting on Monday, and was expected to keep its ultra-low interest rates unchanged.

The Hang Seng in Hong Kong lost 2.3% to 14,961.18. The index has shrunk more than 10% this year, its worst start to a year since 2016. The Shanghai Composite index was down 2.7% at 2,756.34.

China’s commercial banks kept their loan prime rate unchanged Monday amid downward pressure on the yuan, disappointing investors who anticipated measures to stimulate the economy. Last week, the People’s Bank of China surprised markets by keeping its medium-term lending facility rate unchanged.

In South Korea, the Kospi fell 0.3% to 2,464.35. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 advanced 0.8% to 7,476.60. In Bangkok, the SET was down 0.6%, while in Taiwan the Taiex gained 0.8%.

In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude added 18 cents to $73.43 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gained 14 cents to $78.70 a barrel.

The U.S. dollar fell to 147.87 Japanese yen from 148.14 yen. The euro cost $1.0886, down from $1.0897.

On Friday, the S&P 500 rallied 1.2% to its record of 4,839.81. The Dow Jones Industrial Average set its own record a month earlier, and it gained 1.1% to 37,863.80. The Nasdaq composite jumped 1.7% to 15,310.97.

———-