It was a day of slight movement in the stock market, but it was enough for the Dow and S&P 500 to touch fresh highs. Despite ending the day near flat, the Dow managed to reach an intraday all-time high, gaining 0.28% to hit 37,801.90 at one point and eventually closing with a small gain of 15.29 points. The S&P 500 reached a 52-week high on an intraday basis, rising 0.31% during the session before inching down by 0.07% by the end of the day. The Nasdaq Composite also eked out a fifth positive session in a row.
Meanwhile, Japanese stocks are also making waves, with the Topix Index and Nikkei 225 seeing significant gains, outperforming all but one of the Magnificent 7 stocks in the US. GMO, the Boston-based money manager founded by value investor Jeremy Grantham, believes that supportive headlines and earnings upsides from companies are driving the improvement of Japanese stocks and that overseas investors could benefit from currency effects.
The major indexes are tracking to end the week higher, with the Dow climbing 0.7%, the S&P 500 adding 1.8%, and the Nasdaq Composite outperforming with a 3.1% gain.
Inflation concerns did not deter Wall Street, with CME calculations showing that the odds of Fed rate cuts in March, May, and June have risen based on implied probabilities derived from interest rate futures trading. And in the world of cryptocurrency, BlackRock’s debut bitcoin ETF saw more than $1 billion worth of trades on the exchange in its first day of trading.
In the after-hours, stock futures were little changed, with futures tied to the Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq 100 all trading near their flatlines. The markets are certainly giving investors some interesting trends to watch.