The furious rally on Wall Street to start 2024 took a breather at the beginning of the final week of the year’s first quarter, with futures on the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average, and Nasdaq Composite all showing a slight dip before the opening bell. The S&P and Nasdaq have been on fire, with both indexes up nearly 10% since the beginning of the year, but traders are now in a wait-and-see mode as the short final week of March kicks off, especially with financial markets closed for Good Friday.
The highlight of the week will be the release of the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index on Friday, which includes the Federal Reserve’s preferred “core” PCE inflation measure. The Fed’s rate decision last week helped fuel the market’s bull run, as the central bank reaffirmed expectations of three rate cuts this year and issued more bullish forecasts on the economy.
In corporate news, shares of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Intel (INTC) both fell over 3% in premarket trading after a report that China would phase out the use of their chips and servers in government computers.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes at Chipotle, CEO Brian Niccol remains a game-changer in the fast-food industry, with a focus on new restaurant openings and tech improvements to drive profit margins. Investors are also keeping an eye on potential bubbles in assets like bitcoin and tech stocks, as a new survey from Deutsche Bank suggests concerns about over-inflation in these areas.
