Don’t look now, but the S&P 500 is back on track for a record.
The market benchmark was up 0.1% and trading north of its Sept. 4 closing high of 6502.08. The Nasdaq Composite, which already closed at a record on Monday, was up another 0.1%. The Dow was up 118 points, or 0.3%, but was still roughly 100 points off its Aug. 28 closing high of 45,636.90.
Wall Street has mostly shrugged off the latest update to nonfarm employment data that wiped off 911,000 jobs from prior tallies of the 12 months through March.
Odds of a half-point cut when the Federal Reserve meets next week were at 8.2%, while odds of a quarter-point cut are at 91.8%, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.
“For the Fed to go 50, they would be taking out the October cut,” writes Andrew Brenner, head of international fixed income at NatAlliance Securities. “We prefer to see 25 3 times this year…market needs to know the Fed is behind them… And the Fed can’t weight the inflation numbers at zero…so 25 is a nice compromise.”