U.S. equity futures pointed to a higher open on Monday, suggesting that Wall Street could extend last week’s gains amid renewed strength in technology shares, particularly Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA).
The chipmaker’s stock jumped 2.2% in pre-market trading after Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) confirmed it had received export licenses from the Trump administration allowing it to ship Nvidia chips to the United Arab Emirates. The move boosted investor confidence across the AI and semiconductor sectors, setting a positive tone for the session.
Still, analysts expect overall trading volumes to be relatively muted as investors await key economic updates later in the week. The spotlight will be on ADP’s private payrolls report on Wednesday, which could offer valuable insight into the labor market’s strength amid uncertainty surrounding the outlook for U.S. interest rates.
Several major government reports remain delayed due to the ongoing federal shutdown, heightening the importance of private-sector data.
Friday’s session saw considerable volatility, with stocks rallying early before trimming gains, then rebounding again—only to pull back slightly into the close. Even so, the major averages all finished higher: the Nasdaq rose 143.81 points (0.6%) to 23,724.96, the S&P 500 gained 17.86 points (0.3%) to 6,840.20, and the Dow added 40.75 points (0.1%) to 47,562.87.
For the week, the Nasdaq led the way with a 2.2% gain, while the Dow and S&P 500 climbed 0.8% and 0.7%, respectively.
The previous week’s rally was fueled largely by strong corporate earnings, led by Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), whose shares soared 9.6% to a new all-time high after the company posted better-than-expected third-quarter results and a surge in cloud computing revenue.
“The e-commerce division may have by far the bigger public profile but it’s the cloud services AWS division which is the real engine of Amazon’s growth and, it’s this which sparked the share price into life,” said AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould.
He added, “Demand for computing power linked to AI is showing no signs of letting up and that is driving significant growth for AWS, with third-quarter numbers helping to ease fears that this business was losing ground to rival operators.”
Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) also gained after announcing its board of directors approved a ten-for-one stock split, while Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) slipped even after beating expectations for its fiscal fourth quarter and offering upbeat guidance for the current quarter.
Interest rate uncertainty continued to weigh on sentiment after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell reiterated a cautious stance.
While the Fed lowered rates by 25 basis points last week as anticipated, Powell said another cut in December is “not a foregone conclusion,” emphasizing that Fed officials had “strongly differing views about how to proceed” heading into their final meeting of the year.
Retail stocks rallied strongly alongside Amazon, with the Dow Jones U.S. Retail Index jumping 4.0%, its highest close in over a month. Airline stocks also outperformed, with the NYSE Arca Airline Index surging 2.7% from a two-month low.
Elsewhere, biotechnology, computer hardware, and brokerage stocks posted notable gains, while gold miners retreated as precious metal prices slipped.
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