Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange.
Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters
The major U.S. stock indexes advanced Monday, with Wall Street building on the previous session’s strong gains, as traders lift Federal Reserve rate cut expectations.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 96 points, or 0.3%. The S&P 500 advanced 0.7%, and the Nasdaq Composite gained nearly 0.8%.
An announcement from Hamas on Monday that it accepted an Egyptian-Qatari cease-fire proposal to end the war with Israel gave stocks a boost in early afternoon trading.
Micron shares gained more than 4.5% after Baird upgraded the stock to outperform from neutral and said it sees “meaningful opportunities ahead” for shares.
Wall Street is coming off a winning session, after fresh nonfarm payrolls data on Friday showed the U.S. economy added fewer-than-expected jobs in April and an increase in unemployment, easing fears of an overheating economy.
“It’s good that we’re getting some sort of a continuation, because it seems as if the market is saying that the pullback is over and we’ll just work our way back up,” CFRA chief investment strategist Sam Stovall said, adding that Monday’s momentum is a reaction to Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s statement last week that ruled out a rate hike as the central bank’s next move. That “made investors breathe a sigh of relief,” Stovall said.
While the peak of the first-quarter earnings season has passed, investors are still watching key companies set to report this week, including Dow member Disney on Tuesday and Uber on Wednesday. On Saturday, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway reported a nearly 40% surge in year-over-year operating earnings for the first quarter. Berkshire also held its annual shareholder meeting.