Wall Street rose for a fifth straight day to put the wraps on a volatile month.
The S&P 500 rose 0.5 per cent in abbreviated trading on Friday and closed out November with a slim gain of 0.1 per cent. The Dow Jones rose 289 points, or 0.6 per cent. The Nasdaq gained 0.7 per cent but ended November with a drop of 1.5 per cent because of losses for some big tech stocks.
Wall Street edged higher to extend its winning streak.Credit: AP
The Australian sharemarket is set to edge higher, with futures pointing to a gain of 4 points, or 0.1 per cent, at the open. The Australian dollar was trading at US65.43¢ at 5.20am AEDT.
Stocks swooned in mid-month as investors worried that stocks boosted by the frenzy around artificial intelligence such as Nvidia had gotten too expensive. Nvidia lost 1.8 per cent Friday and closed the month with a double-digit loss. Oracle fell 23 per cent in November while Palantir Technologies sank 16 per cent.
Some tech stocks did notch monthly gains, most notably Alphabet, which rose nearly 14 per cent, due to excitement about its recently released Gemini AI model.
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The market turned around on hopes the Federal Reserve will again cut interest rates at its meeting next month. Recent comments from Fed officials have given traders more confidence the central bank will again cut interest rates at its meeting that ends Dec. 10. Traders are betting on a nearly 87 per cent probability that the Fed will cut next month, according to data from CME Group.
The central bank, which has already cut rates twice this year in hopes of shoring up the slowing job market, is facing an increasingly difficult decision on interest rates as inflation rises and the job market slows. Cutting interest rates further could help support the economy as employment weakens, but it could also fuel inflation. The latest round of corporate earnings reports was mostly positive, but economic data has been mixed.
The minutes of the Fed’s most recent meeting in October indicate there are likely to be strong divisions among policymakers about the Fed’s next step.
