- US stocks wavered Monday after a record-setting week.
- Traders were digesting upgrades from Wall Street firms and fresh Fed comments.
- Fed President Neel Kashkari nodded to a rate cut in December in comments over the weekend.
US stocks edged lower Monday morning as traders took a moment to catch their breath after stocks set a series of records last week.
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq set four straight record highs last week and closed higher for the seventh week of the last eight. Traders on Monday hit pause after the rally, assessing some new outlooks from big Wall Street firms.
Goldman Sachs strategist David Kostin boosted his year-end S&P 500 price target to 5,600, representing potential upside of about 3% from current levels.
Kostin had previously had a 5,200 year-end price target for the S&P 500. The strategist said continued earnings growth from mega-cap tech stocks could boost the index to his new target.
Meawnwhile, Evercore ISI boosted its S&P 500 year-end price target to a street-high 6,000. The firm said continued AI hype should drive stocks higher for the next two years, adding that the S&P 500 could tag 7,000 by the end of 2025.
Meanwhile, Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari made fresh comments to CBS over the weekend, in which he said it is a "reasonable prediction" that the Fed will cut interest rates one time this year at its December meeting.
"We're in a very good position right now to take our time, get more inflation data, get more data on the economy, on the labor market, before we have to make any decisions," Kashkari said.
Here's where US indexes stood shortly after the 9:30 a.m. opening bell on Monday:
- S&P 500: 5,424.98, down 0.12%
- Dow Jones Industrial Average: 38,518.29, down 0.18% (-69.48 points)
- Nasdaq composite: 17,678.97, down 0.08%
Here's what else is going on today:
- Bitcoin will hit $500,000 by the end of this decade on strong ETF demand, analysts at Bernstein said.
- Get ready for a stock market sell-off of at least 5% in the coming months, CFRA strategist Sam Stovall predicted.
- The AI boom is creating a divergence in the most dominant tech trades of the past decade, and it probably won't stop anytime soon.
- The potential for a stock market crash is on the minds of many stock market forecasters. Here's what they are saying.
In commodities, bonds, and crypto:
- West Texas Intermediate crude oil rose 0.60% to $78.52 a barrel. Brent crude, the international benchmark, was higher by 0.53% to $83.06 a barrel.
- Gold edged lower by 0.42% to $2,339.30 per ounce.
- The 10-year Treasury yield jumped five basis points to 4.28%.
- Bitcoin dropped 1.56% to $65,590.