US Stocks To Open Higher As Wall Street Expects 'Santa Rally' In Shortened Trading Week: MicroStrategy, Palantir, Qualcomm Among Stocks In Focus

U.S. stock futures advanced on Monday following a tumultuous week which included the Federal Reserve’s hawkish rate cut on Wednesday and a “Triple Witching” hour session on Friday. Two out of the four major index futures were trading higher in premarket trade.

The 10-year and two-year Treasury yields stood at 4.53% and 4.32%, respectively. The probability of having no change in the interest rates for the upcoming Jan. 31, 2025 decision was at 91.4%, according to CME Group’s FedWatch Tool.

Trading schedules will be adjusted for the Christmas holiday week. All markets will be closed on Wednesday. Trading hours will be shortened on Christmas Eve.

In premarket trading on Monday, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE:SPY) was up 0.09% to $591.73 and the Invesco QQQ Trust ETF (NASDAQ:QQQ) rose 0.23% to $519.04, according to Benzinga Pro data.

Cues From The Last Session

Risk appetite returned to Wall Street on Friday, giving investors some relief. November’s inflation data came in softer than expected, offering a glimmer of hope that the Federal Reserve may ease its aggressive monetary tightening.

The Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) price index, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, rose 2.4% year-over-year, below the anticipated 2.5%. Core PCE, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, also undershot expectations, climbing 2.8% instead of the projected 2.9%.

This unexpected cooling of inflation sparked a jubilant rally across all major indices. The S&P 500 surged 1.09%, with every sector contributing to the gains. Investors cheered the reprieve from persistent inflationary pressures.

The real estate sector led the charge, experiencing a sharp rebound after being particularly hard-hit by the Fed’s recent hawkish stance. Small-cap stocks, represented by the Russell 2000, also posted strong gains of 0.94%, buoyed by a significant recovery in regional banks.

Insights From Analysts

The number of advancers surpassed the decliners among the S&P 500 index constituents on Friday after a 14-day streak of negative market breadth. Ryan Detrick, the global market strategist at Carson Research highlighted how the markets have performed after previous long streaks ended.

According to the data shared by him, over the past four decades, there have been only five other instances where the S&P 500 experienced a period of ten or more consecutive days of negative breadth. Additionally, the index was higher by an average of 17.9% a year later after all five times.

Along with this, the market breadth turned positive with 89% of the stocks rising on Friday as compared to only 4% on Wednesday. This divergence also led the index to be higher a year later by at least 92.3% of the time since 1985.

According to Gary Alexander at Navellier & Associates, “The S&P 500 delivers an average of zero gains in the first half of December (and 0.3% through December 15 this year) but averages 1.35% in the second half, the best half-month of the 24 half-months each year.”

“Core PCE (Personal Consumption Expenditure, excluding food and energy), the key inflation metric for the Fed, came in at 0.1% for November, below forecast and the lowest since June. This caught the market off guard, in a good way, as the rhetoric from Jerome Powell regarding sticky inflation had led the market to expect a surprise in the other direction,” said Louis Navellier of Navellier & Associates.

“The traditional Santa Rally is the last 5 trading days of the year and the first 2 of the New Year. It may still be in the cards,” he added.

See Also: How To Trade Futures

Upcoming Economic Data

A few important data points are slated to be released in this truncated week that will help investors determine the future course of action.

• On Monday, consumer confidence for December will be released at 10:00 a.m., ET.

• On Tuesday, November’s data for durable goods orders and durable goods minus transportation will be released at 8:30 a.m., ET.

• New home sales for November will be released at 10:00 a.m. ET.

• On Wednesday, there will be a day’s break for Christmas.

• On Thursday, initial jobless claims data till Dec. 21 will announced at 8:30 a.m. ET.

• On Friday, November’s data for the advanced U.S. trade balance in goods, advanced retail inventories, and advanced wholesale inventories will be announced at 8:30 a.m., ET.

Stocks In Focus:

• Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) was up 3.02% in premarket after it bagged a key win in its legal battle against semiconductor design company Arm Holdings Plc. (NASDAQ:ARM), which was down 3.52%.

• Anavex Life Sciences Corp (NASDAQ:AVXL) was up 0.23% as analysts expect it to post a quarterly loss at 16 cents per share before the opening bell.

• Brenmiller Energy Ltd (NASDAQ:BNRG) was up 32.75% after the company on Friday said that it was awarded ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification.

• Sealsq Corp (NASDAQ:LAES) was up 31.27% after it announced the offering of 13,157,896 common stock at $1.90 per share.

• MicroStrategy Inc (NASDAQ:MSTR) fell 1.69%, and Palantir Technologies Inc (NASDAQ:PLTR) was up 1.42% in premarket trade.

• Moderna Inc. (NASDAQ:MRNA) rose by 0.74% and Super Micro Computer Inc. (NASDAQ:SMCI) was up by 1.20% in premarket.

Commodities, Gold And Global Equity Markets:

Crude oil futures were lower in the early New York session by 0.32% to hover around $69.24 per barrel.

The gold spot index was down by 0.41% to $2,634.16 per ounce. The Dollar Index was up 0.42% to 108.073 level.

Asian markets advanced on Friday, as Hong Kong’s Hang Seng, South Korea’s Kospi, Japan’s Nikkei 225, India’s S&P BSE Sensex, China’s CSI 300 and Australia’s ASX 200 index rose. European markets were mixed.

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