© Reuters
Investing.com — U.S. stocks rose slightly Tuesday, buoyed by a fall in Treasury yields as dovish remarks from some Federal Reserve speakers boosted bets on rate cuts.
By 13:49 ET (18:49 GMT), the rose 79 points, or 0.2%, the was marginally higher and the rose 0.1%.
The main Wall Street indices are on course to post strong gains in November – the DJIA set to finish the month 6.9% higher, the up 8.5% and the technology-heavy Nasdaq 10.8% higher.
Treasury yields slip as Fed speak boosts rate-cut hopes
Federal Reserve Board Governor Christopher Waller said he was “increasingly confident” that policy is currently well positioned to slow the economy and get inflation back to 2% target.
Adding to clout to bets of a Fed rate cut early next year, Waller added that should data show disinflation continuing for several more months, the Fed “could then start lowering the policy rate just because inflation’s lower.”
Treasury yields fell on the remarks, with the yield on falling 9 basis points to 4.765%, while the yield on the fell 3 basis points to 4.359%.
The remarks come just ahead of fresh of the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, the , on Thursday, which is expected to have risen just 0.1% on the month in November, a drop from 0.4% in September.
Retailers in focus after Cyber Monday sales hit record
Sentiment on retailers were boosted by ongoing signs that the consumer remains in good shape after surprised to the upside, while Cyber Monday sales hit a record high.
Consumer spending on Cyber Monday, the biggest U.S. online shopping day, is expected to have surged to an all-time high of over $12 billion, according to preliminary estimates from Adobe (NASDAQ:) Digital Insights cited by Reuters.
Walmart (NYSE:) and Footlocker were among a slew of retailers in the ascendency, while payments platform Affirm (NASDAQ:) jumped nearly 7% as record number of holiday shoppers likely used buy now, pay later services.
Micron boosts outlook, Zscaler cuts losses
Zscaler (NASDAQ:) cut loses to trade flat after the cybersecurity company lifted its full-year guidance after reporting quarterly results that topped Wall Street estimates.
The firm also left its billings guidance unchanged, but Wedbush said the guidance represented “a conservative and prudent bar in our view given the underlying strength that ZS is seeing in the field.”
Micron Technology Inc (NASDAQ:) raised its profit and revenue guidance for its fiscal first-quarter, but the stock fell more than 3% as the chipmaker also lifted its forecast on annual expenses to about $990 million from $900 million previously.
Energy stocks as oil rides bets on deeper production cuts ahead of OPEC+ meeting higher
Energy stocks were one of the biggest gainers on the day as rose on hopes that OPEC+ will agree to extend or even deepen its ongoing production cuts at a meeting later this week.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies, a group known as OPEC+, is set to hold an online ministerial meeting on Thursday to discuss production targets for 2024.
The meeting was delayed from Sunday after disagreements between members over production targets, but the group’s de facto leader Saudi Arabia has seemingly worked to find consensus on the need to deepen output cuts.
(Peter Nurse and Oliver Gray contributed to this report.)