U.S. stocks were broadly higher on Monday, with Microsoft and Nvidia leading technology stocks that lifted the market and investors also awaiting more clues on Federal Reserve policy. The Dow rose 203.76 points, or 0.58 percent, to 35151.04, the Nasdaq rose 1.13 percent to 14284.53 and the S&P 500 rose 0.74 percent to 4547.38.
Microsoft rose 2.0% to a record high. CEO Nadella said former OpenAI CEO Altman will join the tech giant to lead a new artificial intelligence research team.
Market overview
According to the Conference Board, the leading economic indicator of the United States fell 0.8% in October, the 19th consecutive month of decline. Despite the recent cooling in economic data, the US economy is still far from recession.
The U.S. economy is expanding while price growth has slowed, but the progress is not enough for the central bank to declare victory in the fight against inflation, Federal Reserve Governor Barkin said on Monday. He said the message he heard was that the economy was normalizing, but inflation would remain high, giving him reason to believe that interest rates would stay high for longer.
U.S. stocks have rallied for three straight weeks after weaker-than-expected U.S. inflation data last week provided a case for the Federal Reserve to stop raising interest rates. A 29-year Treasury auction on Monday received a good response, with mid - and long-term Treasury yields easing, with the benchmark 10-year at 4.42 percent and the 30-year yield at 4.57 percent late in the day.
On Tuesday, the Federal Reserve will release the minutes of this month's policy meeting, which will be sought for clues on the direction of U.S. interest rates. According to the CME Group's FedWatch tool, markets are pricing in a December hold and expect the Fed to start considering a rate cut as soon as March. Chris Larkin, managing director of trading and investment at Morgan Stanley E-Trade, said: "As the economy cools, fears of another rate hike have eased and expectations are now focused on when the Fed may shift to rate cuts."
'The market is starting to really believe that the Fed is done raising rates,' said Jamie Cox, a partner at Harris Financial Group. "Right now the market is pricing in a rate cut, and I think it's probably closer than expected, and that's why the stock market has stabilized quite a bit in the last month and a half."
Among individual stocks, Nvidia rose 2.3 percent ahead of the chip giant's latest earnings report on Tuesday.
Boeing rose 4.7 percent as Deutsche Bank upgraded the aerospace company to "buy" from "hold" and raised its price target to $270 from $204.
Tesla rose 0.5% as the company raised prices in China. This will be Tesla's fourth recent price increase in a row, for the full range of models.
Bristol-myers Squibb fell 4 percent and Germany's Bayer halted late-stage trials of a new anticoagulant drug, hitting investor confidence in all companies developing similar drugs.
Chinese stocks performed well, with the Nasdaq Gold Dragon Index up 3.5%. Xopeng Auto rose more than 8%, Tencent Music, Vipshop rose more than 6%, ideal Car, NexteV, Jingdong rose more than 3%.
International oil prices have continued to rebound, and the market is concerned about the prospect of OPEC+ increasing production cuts. The front-month WTI crude was up 2.25 percent at $77.60 a barrel, while the front-month Brent crude was up 2.12 percent at $82.32 a barrel.
International gold prices traded in a tight range, with COMEX gold futures for November delivery down 0.20 percent at $1,977.70 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
