ASX hits record high, banks retreat

Loading

On Wall Street, stocks closed higher as the market posted its fifth straight gain and the Dow Jones notched another record high.

The S&P 500 rose 0.3 per cent. The benchmark index’s 1.7 per cent gain for the week erased most of its loss from last week.

The Dow rose 1 per cent as it nudged past its most recent high set last week, and the Nasdaq composite rose 0.2 per cent. The Australian sharemarket is set to climb, with futures pointing to a rise of 52 points, or 0.6 per cent.

Markets have been volatile over the last few weeks, losing ground in the runup to elections in November, then surging following Donald Trump’s victory, before falling again. The S&P 500 has been steadily rising throughout this week to within close range of its record. It’s now within about 0.5 per cent of its all-time high set last week.

“Overall, market behaviour has normalised following an intense few weeks,” said Mark Hackett, chief of investment research at Nationwide, in a statement.

Smaller company stocks had some of the biggest gains. The Russell 2000 index rose 1.8 per cent.

A majority of stocks in the S&P 500 gained ground, but those gains were kept in check by slumps for several big technology companies.

Nvidia fell 3.2 per cent. Its pricey valuation makes it among the heaviest influences on whether the broader market gains or loses ground. The company has grown into a nearly $US3.6 trillion ($5.5 trillion) behemoth because of demand for its chips used in artificial-intelligence technology.

Intuit, which makes TurboTax and other accounting software, fell 5.7 per cent. It gave investors a quarterly earnings forecast that fell short of analysts’ expectations.

Loading

Facebook owner Meta Platforms fell 0.7 per cent following a decision by the Supreme Court to allow a multibillion-dollar class action investors’ lawsuit to proceed against the company. It stems from the privacy scandal involving the Cambridge Analytica political consulting firm.

European markets closed mostly higher and Asian markets ended mixed. Crude oil prices rose.

Treasury yields held relatively steady in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.41 per cent from 4.42 per cent late Thursday.

In the crypto market, bitcoin hovered around $US99,000, according to CoinDesk. It has more than doubled this year and first surpassed the $US99,000 level on Thursday.

A key inflation update will come on Wednesday when the US releases its October personal consumption expenditures index. The PCE is the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation and this will be the last PCE reading prior to the central bank’s meeting in December.

With AP

The Market Recap newsletter is a wrap of the day’s trading. Get it each weekday afternoon.