Stocks Rise As Traders Gear Up For Year-End Rally: Markets Wrap

US stocks futures held gains as Asian and European equities set the pace on Thursday, with traders betting that a Federal Reserve interest rate cut will drive a global rally into year-end.

The S&P 500 was set for a muted open after climbing in seven of the past eight sessions. Europe’s Stoxx 600 rose 0.4% as the auto and retail sectors outperformed. Asian equities pushed to their highest in more than two weeks, led by gains in Japanese heavyweights such as SoftBank Group Corp.

Global bonds weakened, driven by rising yields in Japan. Sentiment shifted as some senior government officials signaled they wouldn’t oppose a Bank of Japan rate hike this month. That reversed an earlier lift from a strong 30-year auction. The rate on 10-year US Treasuries rose two basis points to 4.08%.

Bitcoin, meanwhile, held above $93,000. The dollar was little changed.

Fed rate-cut expectations have fueled a broad rebound after November’s slump, with investors turning to defensive and other sectors as worries over stretched tech valuations persist. The small-cap Russell 2000 index is now just shy of a record high, while the Nasdaq 100 remains about 2% below its peak.

“We’re expecting a broadening of the rally for sectors that have so far been lagging,” said Amelie Derambure, senior portfolio manager at Amundi SA in Paris. “The Russell is very sensitive to interest rates, so the figures reinforced the market’s idea that the Fed will be able to lower rates, in a non-recessionary context.”

Tech stocks were broadly steady in premarket trading. All Magnificent Seven megacaps apart from Apple Inc. posted modest gains, while Salesforce Inc. climbed on signs that customers are embracing its artificial intelligence tools. Nasdaq 100 futures trailed the S&P 500.

A report on corporate job-cut announcements from Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. added to evidence that the US labor market is softening. Announced layoffs fell last month after surging in October, but were still the highest for any November in three years, according to the outplacement firm.

With official data still delayed, private indicators have increasingly pointed to employment coming under pressure from company belt-tightening and weaker spending. Later on, initial jobless claims are expected to tick modestly higher.

Worries about the jobs market and expectations that President Donald Trump will choose a Fed chair who shares his dovish stance have shifted market pricing toward as many as four rate cuts through 2026. Still, with the broader economy resilient, easier policy should continue to support stocks.

“Retail momentum stocks and crypto are still way below the recent peaks, though both have recovered from the recent lows,” wrote Mohit Kumar, chief economist and strategist for Europe at Jefferies. “We see sentiment remaining positive into year-end.”

Corporate News

Meta Platforms Inc. faces a full-scale antitrust investigation from the European Union as early as this week over how its AI features in WhatsApp may be harming competition, in the latest probe into Big Tech’s dominance on the continent.
Cambricon Technologies Corp. plans to more than triple its production of AI chips in 2026, aiming to wrest market share from Huawei Technologies Co. in China and fill a void left by Nvidia Corp.’s forced exit.
Novo Nordisk A/S left open the door for additional work on its pill version of Ozempic for Alzheimer’s disease after a pair of failed trials, saying that patients showed a biological response in a handful of areas despite getting no cognitive improvement.
Paramount Skydance Corp. more than doubled the proposed breakup fee in its offer to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. to $5 billion, according to people familiar with the company’s offer.
Toronto-Dominion Bank beat estimates on record results at its capital-markets unit, continuing a trend seen across other Canadian lenders to wrap up a year marked by buoyant markets, and the company’s US business did better than forecast.

Some of the main moves in markets:

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