S&P 500, Nasdaq futures climb to record highs on trade optimism

Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange. (Michael Nagle/Bloomberg)

Futures tracking the S&P 500 and Nasdaq touched record highs on Monday, as optimism over U.S. trade negotiations with its key partners helped support upward momentum in markets.

Shares of technology heavyweights rose premarket after Canada scrapped its digital services tax targeting U.S. tech firms, just hours before it was due to take effect, in a bid to advance stalled trade negotiations with the United States.

Shares of Amazon, Meta Platforms, Alphabet and Apple edged up in the range of 0.6 per cent and 1.7 per cent.

The benchmark S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose to all-time highs on Friday, as bets of deeper U.S. interest rate cuts and renewed optimism around AI helped markets rebound from the months-long tumult sparked by U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff policies and geopolitical tensions.

Focus now shifts to a July 9 deadline for countries to reach deals with the United States or see tariffs spike higher, but Trump has said he could extend the tariff deadline or “make it shorter.”

Investors are also looking into economic data and fiscal policy developments to see if the latest bull run in U.S. stocks can continue.

U.S. Senate Republicans pushed President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax cut and spending bill forward in a marathon weekend session. Senators are scheduled to start voting on a potentially long list of amendments to the bill beginning at 9 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) Monday.

Key economic data releases this week include monthly non-farm payrolls and the Institute for Supply Management’s survey on manufacturing and services sectors for June. Several U.S. central bank officials including Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell are scheduled to speak later this week.

A raft of soft economic data and expectations that Trump will replace Powell with someone dovish have pushed up bets of rate cuts from the Fed this year.

By 5:48 a.m. ET (09:48 GMT), e-mini S&P 500 futures contracts were up 24.5 points, or 0.39 per cent. Nasdaq 100 E-mini climbed 137 points, or 0.6 per cent and E-mini Dow Jones added 205 points, or 0.46 per cent.

Despite record highs for U.S. stocks, the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Dow are set for their weakest first-half performances since 2022.

Among other movers, shares of big U.S. banks rose after the Federal Reserve’s annual “stress test” found twenty-two of the largest U.S. banks are well-positioned to weather a hypothetical severe economic downturn and continue lending.

The optimistic showing could lead to banks upping how much excess capital they plan to distribute to shareholders via dividends or stock buybacks.

Shares of JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup C.N and Wells Fargo rose in the range of 0.4 per cent and 1.9 per cent.

Juniper Networks rose 8.4 per cent after the U.S. Justice Department settled its lawsuit challenging server maker Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s all-cash acquisition of the networking gear maker for US$14 billion.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise shares rose 5.6 per cent.

(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)