(Reuters) – Dow contracts touched a record high on Monday, leading gains among U.S. stock index futures, fueled by investor optimism over Scott Bessent’s nomination as Treasury Secretary.
Donald Trump ended weeks of speculation when he named his choice late on Friday, with some investment strategists saying Bessent could take measures to restrain further government borrowing, even as he follows through on the president-elect’s fiscal and trade pledges.
“The beauty of this nomination is that Bessent is a fiscal conservative. Now this sets the stage for more fiscal discipline, which the market is really going to welcome. His background is in FX trading and in fixed income, including global fixed income, which is another plus,” said Joe McCann, CEO at Asymmetric in Miami.
At 05:08 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were up 302 points, or 0.68%, S&P 500 E-minis were up 28.5 points, or 0.48% and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were up 114.75 points, or 0.55%.
Futures tracking the domestically focused small-caps index rose 1.2% as the yield on 30-year Treasury bonds led declines across the curve.
Big banks gained, with Wells Fargo up 1.1% and Morgan Stanley adding 1.2% in premarket trading, while popular ‘Trump trade’ Tesla rose 2%.
Among megacaps, Alphabet and Amazon.com rose 0.75% each.
Yields on Treasury bonds had spiked after Trump’s victory on expectations that his policies, although considered broadly positive for economic growth and large corporates, could stoke inflationary pressures and slow down the pace of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy easing.
The benchmark S&P 500 crossed 6,000 points for the first time days after the election verdict, and has jumped more than 4% since Nov. 4. The Russell 2000 index has surged more than 8% during the same period and both indexes are near their respective record highs.
Brokerage Barclays raised its full-year 2025 forecast for the S&P 500 to 6,600 points from 6,500.
Expectations for the Federal Reserve’s policy move in December have recently swayed between a pause and a cut. The CME Group’s FedWatch Tool shows a 56.2% probability the central bank will lower borrowing costs by 25 basis points.
Investors will focus on the Personal Consumption Expenditure report, the central bank’s preferred inflation gauge, later in this Thanksgiving week, along with the latest estimate on gross domestic product and minutes from the Fed’s policy meeting earlier this month.
Crypto stocks such as MicroStrategy advanced 6%, MARA Holdings rose 4.6% and Coinbase added 1.4%, with bitcoin prices just shy of the $100,000 mark.
Peabody Energy dropped 5.1% after Anglo American decided to sell its remaining Australian steelmaking coal mines to the company for up to $3.78 billion in cash.
Snowflake was up 3.6% after brokerage Wedbush raised its rating on the stock to “outperform” from “neutral”.
(Reporting by Johann M Cherian in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai)
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