Good morning!
Stocks are rallying ever so slightly on what is expected to be a quiet pre-holiday trading day, while US bond yields sunk to record lows overnight and gold has added to its recent rally.
As of 9:45 a.m. ET, the Dow was up 28.08 points, for a 0.16% gain. The S&P 500 was up just 4.99 points, or 0.24%, while Nasdaq was higher by 17.10 points, a 0.35% jump.
The quiet comes after three straight days of climbing stocks that have left averages above their levels from before the UK’s Brexit vote to leave the European Union.
On the bond side, the US Treasury 10-year yield hit an all-time low overnight at 1.378%, while the 30-year yield fell to 2.204%. Both have made a comeback, with the 10-year yield sitting at 1.4270% as of 9:47 a.m.
“Speculation on ECB buys and QE from the UK has Yields in France, UK, Japan, Netherlands and the USA hitting record lows this AM,” said Dave Lutz of JonesTrading in his daily commentary.
Gold contracts are on the rise Friday as well, with the precious metal hitting its highest level since March 2014 at $1,344 an ounce, a 1.72% leap. Though, according to John LaForge at Wells Fargo Investment Institute, the rally may be short-lived since the commodity is still in a bear “super-cycle.”
This is the fourth day in a row that markets appear to be climbing, though the day before a holiday weekend is expected to be fairly reserved, with “holiday volumes” as Lutz described it.
Additionally, automakers will report June sales on Friday with economists expecting them to come in at 17.30 million on an annualized basis. So far, Nissan and Ford have beat expectations, while GM and Fiat Chrysler have fallen short.
In US economic data, we will hear from the ISM on the health of the manufacturing sector at 10 a.m.