Wall Street ticked modestly higher early Monday ahead of a highly-anticipated interest rate decision later this week by the Federal Reserve.
Futures for the S&P 500 edged up 0.2% before the opening bell, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were unchanged. Nasdaq futures were up 0.3%.
Among the biggest stock movers in premarket were a trio of companies that are moving up to trade on the S&P 500, including Carvana, CRH and Comfort Systems USA. Auto retailer Carvana climbed nearly 9%, building materials company CRH jumped 7% and construction contractor Comfort Systems USA rose 1.4%.
Berkshire Hathaway lost less than 1% after the Warren Buffett-led conglomerate announced that investment manager and Geico CEO Todd Combs is leaving the company and heading to JPMorgan Chase. Buffett previously announced that he will hand over the CEO role at Berkshire Hathaway to Greg Abel next year, though he will remain as chairman.
Netflix rose less than 1% after President Donald Trump said Sunday that the video streamer’s deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery “could be a problem” because of the size of the combined market share. Trump said he will be involved in the government’s decision to approve or block the $72 billion deal, which would put two of the world’s biggest streaming services under the same ownership.
Warner Bros. Discovery shares were off 0.7% before the bell.
This week, attention will focus on what the Federal Reserve will do with interest rates, with the widespread expectation that it will cut its benchmark rate Wednesday in hopes of shoring up the slowing U.S. job market. If it does, it will be the U.S. central bank’s third cut of the year.
Lower interest rates boost prices for investments and help the economy. The downside is that they can worsen inflation, which stubbornly remains above the Fed’s 2% target.
Economic reports last week did little to change expectations for a coming cut. One said that an underlying measure of inflation that the Fed prefers to use was at 2.8% in September, exactly as economists expected.
A separate report said U.S. consumers appear to be downgrading their expectations for inflation coming in the near future. They’re now forecasting 4.1% inflation for the year ahead, down from their forecast of 4.5% last month, according to the University of Michigan.
That’s the lowest such forecast since January, which is important because heightened expectations for inflation can create a vicious cycle that only worsens inflation.
At midday in Europe, Germany’s DAX rose 0.2%, while the CAC 40 in Paris lost 0.2%. Britain’s FTSE 100 was unchanged.
In Asia, flaring Japan-China tensions weighed on sentiment after Chinese military aircraft locked radar on Japanese fighter jets during the weekend. The episode occurred weeks into a downturn in relations after a remark about defense of Taiwan by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi angered Beijing.
Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said Japan had formally protested the incident, calling it “an extremely regrettable” act and “a dangerous” one that “exceeded the scope necessary for safe aircraft operations.”
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index slipped 0.2% to 50,581.94 after the government reported revised government data showing that Japan’s economy contracted at an annual pace of 2.3% in the July-September period, not the 1.8% annual rate earlier reported. Japanese exports suffered from the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and public investments slipped.
Chinese markets were mixed, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng falling 1.2% to 25,765.36, while the Shanghai Composite index gained 0.5% to 3,924.08.
China reported its trade surplus has exceeded $1 trillion so far in 2025, as exports climbed 5.9% in November from a year earlier. Exports to the U.S. sank 29% year-on-year, while shipments to other destinations helped offset that decline.
Chinese leaders convened a major annual economic policy planning conference to sketch out details for the coming year and beyond.
Elsewhere in Asia, South Korea’s Kospi added 1.3% to 4,154.85, while Taiwan’s benchmark jumped 1.2%.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 shed 0.1% to 8,624.40.
In energy trading early Monday, U.S. benchmark crude oil lost 82 cents to $59.26 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gave back 83 cents to $62.92 per barrel.