Investing.com – Wall Street traded mixed on Monday though both the Dow and S&P hit new record intraday highs as investors shrugged off a Trump-induced slump in shares of Lockheed Martin and watched a 3% rally in oil prices.
At 11:15AM ET (16:15GMT), the Dow Jones gained 41 points, or 0.21%, and the S&P 500 was unchanged, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite traded down 26 points, or 0.47%.
Although the S&P was wavering along the flat line on Monday, the benchmark index briefly hit a new intraday record high of 2,264.85 points, with the Dow matching pace with its own all-time high of 19,824.59 points.
With Monday’s gains, the blue-chip index was also on track to record what would be its 15th record closing high since the November elections. The Dow has only closed down on 4 days since Donald Trump won the U.S. elections.
On a down note, Trump did cause a ruckus in shares of Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) after tweeting that the costs for its F-35 program were “out of control” and promising that “billions of dollars can and will be saved on military (and other) purchases after January 20” when he officially takes office. Shares slumped 4%.
In an otherwise quiet news day with no major economic reports, market participants looked ahead to the week’s big event:
On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve (Fed) will release its latest decision on interest rates, alongside updated economic projections with a follow-up press conference by its chief Janet Yellen.
According to Investing.com’s Fed Rate Monitor Tool, markets had fully priced in a rate hike by 25 basis points to 0.50%-0.75% in what would be its first increase this year and only the second since the 2007-2009 financial crisis.
With the policy tightening on Wednesday essentially considered a “done deal”, Fed fund futures were pricing in the next move for June 2017 with odds at 64.5%.
Investors will undoubtedly eye the publication of the Fed’s updated dot-plot that outlines, anonymously, individual Fed projections for the future path of interest rates.
Meanwhile, all eyes were on the surge in oil prices after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other producers sealed a deal to jointly cut output for the first time since 2001.
Non-OPEC members agreed to cut output by 558,000 barrels per day (bpd), in a follow up to the cartel’s agreement to reduce production by 1.2 million bpd.
U.S. crude futures gained 3.51% to $53.31 by 11:19AM ET (15:19GMT), while Brent oil traded up 3.48% to $56.22.