4.10pm: Focus turns to Powell's testimony
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite both notched new record highs at the close Friday's records driven by a cooling jobs report, bolstering expectations of a Federal Reserve rate cut in September
By 4pm, the S&P 500 had gained 0.1% to reach 5,573 and the Nasdaq was up 0.3% at 18,404. The Dow Jones slipped 0.1% to finish at 39,345.
This week holds significant events potentially influencing rate-cut predictions, including Fed Chair Jerome Powell's congressional testimony and the release of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) on Thursday, which economists forecast to show a 3.1% year-over-year increase in headline inflation.
Corporate news featured Boeing's guilty plea related to 737 Max crashes, though its stock rose slightly, while Tesla continued its upward streak, closing up 0.5%.
12.30pm: Stocks slipping
Having been leading the way, the Dow Jones has now fallen into the red, down 0.1%, and the S&P 500 has slipped just below flat.
Nike is the biggest faller on the Dow, after its slow sales warning at the end of last month and strong report from rival Adidas last week - but not clear what's hit it today. The share price is down 2.8%.
Salesforce, Visa, McDonalds and Cisco are other Dow fallers.
On the S&P 500, the bottom of the list is Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc (NYSE:CMG), down 5%, followed by Dayforce, Charter Communications, Etsy, Service Now and Walgreens Boots Alliance.
Paramount Global (NASDAQ:PARA) is down 2.75% after majority owner National Amusements agreed to sell its stake to film studio Skydance Media, which is run by David Ellison, son of Oracle co-founder Larry.
Top of the leaderboard is Corning Inc (NYSE:GLW, ETR:GLW), up 11.3% now after revealing that strong AI-linked demand for its optical fibre products has led to a return to growth.
The earlier gains for stocks were down to Friday’s payrolls number reviving hopes of a September rate cut from the Fed, says market analyst Chris Beauchamp at IG.
Investors are now looking towards tomorrow’s testimony from Jerome Powell and this week’s inflation figure to provide further reinforcement of this view.
"If the case for a September move gathers pace, it will help investors to view earnings season in a more positive light too," he says.
Consumer inflation expectations came out earlier, showing a figure of 3%, down from 3.2% last time.
10.19am: Stocks open higher
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq inched up to new all-time highs in opening trades on Wall Street, helped by more strong gains from chipmakers NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA, ETR:NVD), Intel Corp (NASDAQ:INTC, ETR:INL) and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASDAQ:AMD, ETR:AMD).
Rising most, however, was the Dow Jones, up 0.40%, while the S&P 500 has gained 0.18% and the Nasdaq Composite has added 0.16%.
Helping Nvidia, UBS upped its target price and after it said sentiment “has faded somewhat in recent weeks.”
But its recent supply chain checks confirm that demand momentum for Blackwell chips "remains exceedingly robust", with the order pipeline for AI-enabling NVL72/36 systems "materially larger than just two months ago" as hyperscaler budgets for 2025 firm up.
8.30am: US markets to open flattish
The US stock market is expected to open flattish this Monday.
Futures contracts for the Dow Jones Industrial Average predict a 0.1% gain, while the Nasdaq 100 (which smashed a new all-time high last week) and the broader S&P 500 index are not tipped to move from Friday’s closing prices.
There will be little on the macroeconomic calendar to push the needle barring the latest consumer inflation expectations print for June.
The big story on the company news front is Paramount Global (NASDAQ:PARA)’s agreed-upon merger with Skydance to make a $28 billion mega media conglomerate.
Shari Redstone will sell her family's controlling stake in Paramount as part of the deal.
Meanwhile, crisis-struck aircraft manufacturer Boeing Co (NYSE:BA, ETR:BCO) has agreed to pay a $243.6 million fine and plead guilty to fraud in a deal with US federal prosecutors in order to avoid a criminal trial.
The guilty plea relates to a criminal fraud conspiracy charge after the US Department of Justice (DoJ) found the company violated a deal that had protected it from prosecution after two fatal crashes of its 737 Max jets in 2018 and 2019 that killed all 346 people aboard.