U.S. stock futures barely moved as traders waited for new Fed signals

U.S. stocks held steady Monday morning, with markets showing zero urgency after back-to-back winning weeks on Wall Street.

According to data from CNBC, Dow Jones futures inched up by 57 points, or 0.13%, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 ticked up 0.14% and 0.21%. Traders stayed cautious as everyone waited for the next Fed signal, but optimism about interest rate cuts still hung over the market like leftover smoke.

Last week closed strong for the three major indexes. The Dow rose 1.7%, while the S&P 500 added 0.9% and the Nasdaq Composite moved 0.8% higher. That makes it the second week in a row of gains for all three.

The S&P and Nasdaq have now logged four out of five green weeks. But the real action came from small-cap stocks, which jumped over 3%, as bets intensified that the Federal Reserve will ease rates soon, despite inflation data trying to say otherwise.

Asian markets climb after summit ends with no ceasefire

Overnight, Asia-Pacific markets mostly climbed, reacting to the U.S.-Russia summit ending without any truce. Japan’s Nikkei 225 made a new all-time high at 43,683.56, and the Topix index gained 0.53%, helped by stronger tech sentiment.

Meanwhile in South Korea, it was the opposite story. The Kospi dropped 1.25%, and the Kosdaq lost 1.52%, weighed down by investor fears over regional earnings and slowing demand from China. It’s in line with an earlier report by Cryptopolitan mentioning that South Koreans are ditching big tech stocks to move into Ethereum.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index nudged up 0.19%, and mainland China’s CSI 300 improved by 0.34%. The uptick followed new local data hinting at moderate momentum in industrial output.

Over in Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 briefly touched an intra-day high of 8,960 before cooling off, but still closed 0.14% higher. Elsewhere, Singapore reported a 4.6% drop in non-oil domestic exports for July, missing expectations of a 1.8% decline.

The figures, released by Enterprise Singapore, followed a revised 12.9% gain in June, confirming that the country’s trade outlook remains unstable.

European markets stayed mostly flat, with nearly every major index unchanged except for London’s FTSE, which dipped 0.42% to 9,138.9, and Italy’s FTSE MIB, which jumped 1.11%, opening at 42,653.97.

The IBEX 35, DAX, CAC 40, and STOXX 600 all held their ground without any movement. Currency trading in the region showed the euro inching up to 1.171 against the dollar, and climbing 0.4% versus the yen, now at 172.56.

Bond markets were quiet, but the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield slipped slightly to 4.306%, down 0.022 points, while Japanese government bonds showed mixed movement, with the 10-year yield ticking up 0.01 points to 1.575% and the 30-year hitting 3.119% after a 0.019-point rise.

Gold tests resistance as traders eye Fed minutes

On the metals front, gold tried climbing above $3,350 early Monday, after hitting an 11-day low of $3,325 last week. The bounce came as some traders hedged against rising global tension, but others warned that the metal could slip again if the U.S. dollar rebounds this week.

With the Fed’s July meeting minutes and the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium just days away, from August 21 to 23, many are expecting a period of high volatility in both gold and fiat currency markets.

The dollar traded flat in early Asia, but slightly recovered after last week’s decline. President Donald Trump is expected to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a development that could move currency markets since it’ll stir up vira; headlines.

Traders are also scaling back bets on a massive Fed cut. Last week, markets were pricing in a 98% chance of a 50-basis-point cut. That’s now down to 84%, with most expecting a modest quarter-point cut instead, thanks to stronger-than-expected wholesale and retail sales data.

Against the euro, the greenback was barely changed at $1.1705. The British pound inched up 0.07% to $1.3557, while the dollar index edged up to 97.85, recouping a portion of last week’s 0.4% loss. The yen weakened slightly, with the dollar rising 0.11% to 147.34.

That followed comments by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who called out the Bank of Japan as being “behind the curve.” The Japanese government brushed off Bessent’s remarks.

The Australian dollar rose 0.1% to $0.65145, while the New Zealand dollar ticked up 0.15% to $0.5934, both rebounding from last week’s selloff where they each lost around 0.5%.

Oil stayed soft. Brent crude futures dropped 6 cents to $65.79 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, added just 2 cents, trading at $62.82.

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