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A heavy traffic jam with many cars on the road in Chaoyang district in Beijing, China.
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Asia-Pacific markets were set to kick-start a data-heavy week mostly higher, with investors awaiting economic readings from several countries, including Japan, South Korea and China.
Over the weekend, China released its official purchasing managers' index reading for November. Manufacturing PMI came in at 50.3 — its highest level since April — beating the 50.2 expected by economists polled by Reuters. Manufacturing PMI came in at 50.1 in October.
China's non-manufacturing PMI slipped to 50.0 from 50.2 in the previous month, while composite PMI held steady at 50.8.
A reading higher than 50 shows expansion in activity, while below that shows contraction.
On Monday, manufacturing PMI readings from S&P Global will be released for economies throughout Asia, including the Caixin PMI survey for China.
Australia will announce retail sales for the fourth quarter, while Indonesia will disclose its inflation numbers for November later in the day.
Futures for Hong Kong's Hang Seng index stood at 19,642, pointing to a stronger open compared to the HSI's close of 19,423.61.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 started the day up 0.26%.
Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 was set to slip, with the futures contract in Chicago at 38,205 and its counterpart in Osaka at 38,190 against the index's last close of 38,208.03.
On Friday in the U.S., the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 rose to new heights and recorded their best months of 2024 amid a shortened trading day.
The S&P 500 added 0.56%, while the Nasdaq Composite jumped 0.83%. The Dow climbed 188.59 points, or 0.42%. Both the Dow and S&P 500 notched new intraday and closing highs.
Some of the upward momentum came from chip stocks, which popped after Bloomberg reported that the Biden administration was considering additional barriers to the sale of semiconductor equipment to China that weren't as strong as previously expected. Lam Research rallied more than 3%, while Nvidia jumped more than 2%.
— CNBC's Alex Harring contributed to this report.
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— Ganesh Rao
Fri, Nov 29 202412:51 PM EST
No market corrections yet in 2024
There hasn't been a stock market correction, or a pullback of 10% or more, in the S&P 500 this year, according to Bespoke Investment Group.
Since 1928, the S&P 500 has averaged a correction once every 346 days, almost once a year, the research firm said. The market has been stronger in recent years, however, as half the yearly periods since 2000 haven't had such a pullback.
The S&P 500 is up more than 26% in 2024, on track for its best year since 2021.
— Yun Li
Fri, Nov 29 202412:31 PM EST
U.S. equities may near their peak before Trump’s inauguration, Jefferies strategist says
U.S. stocks have soared this month under the promises of more market deregulation under a second Trump administration. But in a Friday email, Jefferies strategist Christopher Wood hypothesized if the market would reach its peak before Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20.
"Financial markets can get very extreme at inflection points and it has to be wondered whether such a point is approaching," he wrote. "At a time when there is much talk about 'American exceptionalism,' it is worth noting that the S&P 500 price to sales ratio is almost back at a record high. America is also now 66.7% of the MSCI All Country World Index which is an all-time high."
Wood added that against this backdrop, institutional and retail investors alike were expressing "zero interest" in investing in ex-U.S. equities.
— Lisa Kailai Han
Fri, Nov 29 202412:24 PM EST
S&P 500 could melt up to 6,300 by end of year, Evercore ISI says
U.S. stocks "remain in the throes of a powerful yearend surge" likely to carry S&P 500 index futures to 6,300 by New Year's, or 5% above Wednesday's close, according to a note out earlier this week by Evercore ISI chartered market technician Rich Ross.
Ross titled his note, "Tis the Season for a Squeezn," referring to the chance that stocks will be pushed higher the remainder of the year partly by investors who had bet against a continued rally now being forced to cover their short sale positions.
Fundamentally, the advance is being driven by "a pro-cyclical expansion of breadth across Small Caps, Consumer [stocks], Financials, Industrials and Technology" during what is already the strongest time of the year for stocks, Ross wrote. Also buoying prices are static crude oil prices and inflation, coupled with fading dollar strength and Treasury yields that have stopped rising, "the sum of which continues to drive [credit] 'Spreads to the tights and Stocks to new heights' into '25,'" the chart watcher said.
The S&P 500 would score a 32.1% gain in 2024 if it reached 6,300 by year-end. The benchmark ended last year at 4,769.83 after climbing 24.2% in 2023.
S&P 500 is higher by almost 14% in the past six months.
— Scott Schnipper
English (US)