US equities powered to fresh highs on Monday at the start of a high-stakes week for financial markets, with the Federal Reserve largely expected to resume its interest-rate cutting.
The S&P 500 Index climbed 0.5% in New York to another all-time high. The Nasdaq 100 Index rose 0.8% notching a ninth-straight closing record, the longest such winning streak since 2023. Nvidia Corp. closed slightly lower after Chinese regulators said the chipmaker had violated anti-monopoly laws during a high-profile 2020 deal.
In other key company news, shares of Tesla Inc. soared after Elon Musk purchased about $1 billion worth of shares. Auto and industrial chipmakers such as Texas Instruments Inc. and ON Semiconductor Corp. fell after China launched two investigations targeting the US chip sector. CoreWeave Inc. jumped after the cloud-computing provider disclosed a $6.3 billion deal with Nvidia under its 2023 pact with chipmaker.
Traders have completely priced in a quarter-point reduction to the Fed’s benchmark rate on Wednesday. But President Donald Trump in a Truth Social post urged Fed Chair Jerome Powell to cut interest rates now “and bigger than he had in mind.” The meeting is being watched closely for signals of how much further the central bank will ease policy over the next several months.
Separately, Trump said he would speak on Friday with Chinese president Xi Jinping following trade talks between negotiators from the world’s two largest economies this week, and Chinese officials reached a framework deal on keeping the TikTok app running in the US.
A team of US officials will arrive in India on Monday night for trade deal discussions, signaling the two nations are moving closer to resolving differences.
Enthusiasm over interest-rate cuts has put anxiety over the global trade war and the slowdown in the economy firmly in the rearview mirror for many on Wall Street. A Bloomberg index that tracks global trade uncertainty had fallen to the lowest level this year, easing from April’s spike as the S&P 500 gained.
Measures of projected volatility look dormant, and analysts’ profit views for the first half of 2026 are climbing back toward where they stood at the beginning of the year.
Meanwhile, top Wall Street strategists warned that the record-setting US stock rally risks temporarily running out of steam after the Fed decision. Prognosticators from Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Oppenheimer Asset Management said a more cautious tone may replace the risk-on mood as investors focus on a potential economic slowdown.
Bloomberg Intelligence strategists Gillian Wolff and Michael Casper say history favors US equities in the first three months after the Fed’s first rate cut of a cycle, while China has historically lagged. In six cycles not tied to recession, US stocks have risen a median 8% in that window going back to 1989, according to BI data.
Adding to a slew of news from the White House, President Trump said companies should not be forced to deliver earnings reports on a quarterly basis, saying he preferred a six-month schedule he cast as saving businesses time and money.
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