S&P 500 Rises, Heads For Another Record As Nvidia Leads Tech Higher: Live Updates

Telehealth company Hims & Hers rose 29.6% Monday after the company introduced access to GLP-1 compound injections for weight loss. The GLP-1 drugs add to the company’s weight loss program launched in December.

During Hims & Hers’ fourth-quarter earnings report before the addition of GLP-1, the company guided its weight loss program to generate more than $100 million in revenue by the end of 2025.

—Hakyung Kim, Ashley Capoot, Brandon Gomez

Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Philip Jefferson stressed Monday that inflation is not slowing fast enough to justify cutting interest rates.

While saying the pace of price increases has “slowed significantly” from its peak in mid-2022, Jefferson added that he supports the Federal Open Market Committee’s recent decision to keep rates steady .

“I believe our policy rate is in restrictive territory as we continue to see the labor market balancing and inflation falling, although nowhere near as quickly as I would have liked,” said the president in a speech prepared for a speech in New York.

Of particular note, Jefferson said that Fed economists calculated that core inflation, as measured by the central bank’s preferred personal consumption expenditures price index, rose to a annual pace of 4.1% during the first four months of 2024, while being above the 2% target.

—Jeff Cox

Natural gas has reached a level not seen since the beginning of this year.

The commodity hit a high of 2.702 on Monday, on track for its fourth consecutive positive session. The high marked its most expensive since Jan. 29, when natural gas hit 2.76.

Several natural gas stocks including Crescent Energy

—Alex Harring, Gina Francolla

RBC Capital Markets is wary of a “sudden” rebound in investor confidence after major averages hit new highs last week.

Lori Calvasina, head of global equity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, noted that while returns have been sticky, the S&P 500 has reversed its fall decline, likely driven by renewed optimism about to the possibility that the market gets rate cuts from the Fed in the second. half of this year, thanks to comments from the Fed, weaker employment data and evidence of consumer resistance to high prices.

“We were struck by how quickly and far the Fed’s expectations have swung like yet another pendulum over the past few months,” Calvasina said in a note Monday.

“The certainty with which some stock investors told us last week why they believed the Fed would cut multiple times this year was in stark contrast to the comments we heard in February and March, where investors expressed certainty that “The Fed wouldn’t be able to cut this year because the economy was too strong and inflation was too high,” she added.

—Tanaya Machel

Here are some of the actions in motion before the bell:

Read the full list here.

-Samantha Subin

Shares of Johnson Controls rose 5% after Bloomberg News reported that Elliott Management acquired a more than $1 billion stake in the security and safety company. Since the start of the year, the stock has climbed 19%.

The U.S. federal debt has ballooned to $34.5 trillion, up about $11 trillion from March 2020, sparking concern in Washington and Wall Street.

“We have large structural deficits, and we’re going to have to deal with them sooner or later, and sooner is much more attractive than later,” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell told an audience of bankers at Amsterdam. .

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, also weighed in on the subject last week, noting: “America should be very aware that we need to focus a little more on our budget deficit problems, and that’s important for the world.”

-Jeff Cox

European stocks got off to a cautious start on Monday, with the regional Stoxx 600 index opening close to the flat line before climbing 0.07% at 8:40 a.m. in London.

Germany’s DAX, Britain’s FTSE 100 and France’s CAC 40 were all up around 0.25%.

Taiwan’s new President Lai Ching-te was sworn in Monday, succeeding his predecessor Tsai Ing-wen after scoring a victory in January elections that marked the start of an unprecedented third presidential term for the Democratic Party progressive.

Its vice president, Hsiao Bi-khim, 52, Taiwan’s former de facto ambassador to the United States, was also sworn in.

During his inauguration speech, Lai called on China to stop its political and military intimidation against Taiwan, adding that he hoped China would “face the reality of the existence of the Republic of China” and respect the choice of the people of Taiwan.

He also said, “Let us pursue peace and mutual prosperity together,” and called on China to choose “dialogue rather than confrontation, exchange rather than containment.”

—Lim Hui Jie, Sumathi Bala

Shares of Chinese property developers in Hong Kong fell on Monday after closing last week on a positive note.

The Chinese central bank on Monday maintained the prime rate on its five-year loans at 3.95%. It constitutes an essential reference in terms of real estate mortgage loans.

It comes after the world’s second-largest economy rolled out measures to boost its property market, including cutting payments and removing the floor on minimum mortgage interest rates, which sent property values ​​soaring on Friday.

Logan Group and Cifi Holdings led the declines on Monday, down 6.02% and 5.56%, respectively; Longfor Group fell 4.82%, while China Vanke slipped around 2%. The mainland Hang Seng real estate index fell slightly by 1.68%.

China’s central bank left its prime rates on one- and five-year loans unchanged at 3.45% and 3.95%, respectively.

The one-year LPR is considered the benchmark for most household and business loans, while the five-year rate is the benchmark for most property mortgages.

The move was in line with a Reuters poll that predicted both rates would remain unchanged.

China announced measures Friday to boost its debt-ridden real estate market.

-Shreyashi Sanyal

Here are some earnings reports to watch for the week ahead:

—Lisa Kailai Han, Robert Hum

Here are the main averages for the month preceding Monday’s session:

—Lisa Kailai Han