Wall Street pointed higher before the opening bell on Monday, taking back some of its post-Christmas losses as markets prepare to kick off the first full trading week of 2025.
Futures for the S&P 500 rose 0.8% and futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.4%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was up 1%.
Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel on Monday filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Biden administration’s decision to block a proposed nearly $15 billion deal for Nippon to acquire Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel. Nippon shares fell 0.8% in Tokyo on Monday, while U.S. Steel shares jumped 3.6% in premarket.
The suit, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, alleges that it was a political decision and violated the companies’ due process. Japanese leaders have also said there is scant evidence that the merger would create a security concern for the U.S.
“We need to have a clear statement as to why there are security concerns, otherwise we will not be able to talk about it in the future,” Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said Monday before the lawsuit was announced. Without mentioning the proposed merger between U.S. Steel and Nippon, Ishiba said Japanese companies have “voiced concerns about future investment between the U.S. and Japan.”
Uber shares jumped 5.1% before markets opened after the ride-hailing app announced an accelerated $1.5 billion stock buyback program. Uber’s chief financial officer, Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, said the company’s shares were “undervalued relative to the strength of our business.”
Later this week, Walgreens, Delta Air Lines and Constellation Brands will report their most recent quarterly results.
It could be difficult for markets to repeat their stellar performance of 2024, when U.S. stock indexes vaulted to records as the economy kept growing despite high interest rates that have helped push inflation nearly all the way down to the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.
Even though the economy and job market still look solid, the path ahead is not assured. Part of the reason the S&P 500 set more than 50 all-time highs last year was because of the expectation that the Fed would keep cutting interest rates through 2025, after it began easing them in September.
However, in early December when the Fed made its third straight interest rate cut, the U.S. central bank also dialed back its projections for the number of rate cuts it expects this year, putting somewhat of a damper on the final trading weeks of 2024.
Markets will be getting a slew of labor market data this week, including government reports on jobs openings, layoffs and the more comprehensive December jobs report.
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