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The S&P 500 came within a whisker of a new all-time high on Friday before it found some resistance that kept a new record at bay. That won't be the case at today's open if the current indication in the equity futures market holds.
Currently, the S&P 500 futures are up 24 points and are trading 0.4% above fair value, the Nasdaq 100 futures are up 112 points and are trading 0.5% above fair value, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures are up 72 points and are trading 0.1% above fair value.
The S&P 500 futures indication isn't a lot, but it's enough to get to record-high territory for the cash counterpart. Fittingly, gains in the mega-cap stocks, and AI enthusiasm following xAI's release of its Grok 3 model, are among the primary factors for the upside bias.
Separately, a lack of negative news catalysts over the extended weekend has fostered a constructive tone in the early going for a market that has been resilient to selling interest despite stretched valuations.
The resilience has acted as its own catalyst, triggering some fear of missing out on further gains that has provided added support for the market along with mega-cap leadership.
There hasn't been much pull from the economic data this morning, which was limited to the February Empire State Manufacturing Survey (a report on manufacturing conditions in the New York Fed region).
Briefly, the Empire State Manufacturing Survey featured an increase in the general business conditions index to 5.7 (Briefing.com consensus -2.0) from -12.6 in January, led by a jump in the indexes for new orders and shipments. The downside of the report, though, was the upside seen in the prices paid index (to 40.2 from 29.1) and the prices received index (to 19.6 from 9.3), which measure input prices and selling prices, respectively.
The index for future business conditions fell 15 points to 22.2.
The 2-yr note yield is up two basis points to 4.28% and the 10-yr note yield is up five basis points to 4.52%. These moves, however, were entrenched before the 8:30 a.m. ET release of the Empire State Manufacturing Survey and coincided with selling in other sovereign bond markets.
Stocks have not been perturbed by the modest shift in the Treasury market, which perhaps also speaks to some unwinding of safety trades given the lack of negative catalysts over the extended weekend and early efforts to to work out an end to the Russia-Ukraine war.
