US open: Stocks continue to advance as dollar rises

US stocks continued their ascent on Monday, as investors were seemingly positive about president-elect Donald Trump’s economic policies of deregulation, lower taxes and increased infrastructure spending, while the dollar rose.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.45% to 18,931.56 points, the S&P 500 increased 0.29% to 2,170.62 points and the Nasdaq hastened by 0.09% to 5,241.58 points at 1517 GMT.

An 80 point increase at the open has seen the Dow Jones rocket to a record peak, crossing the 18,900 mark for the first time in its history, according to Connor Campbell, financial analyst at Spreadex.

“That is, however, slightly less exciting than what the futures had promised this morning, when the Dow was teasing an open closer to the mythic 19,000 mark. Of course there is plenty of time for all that – in the last week the Dow has proven it works best when freed from the weight of Europe.”

He said that the dollar and the Dow Jones have continued to rise in unison, which was rare before the election, as an interest rate hike seemed imminent from the Federal Reserve.

“Not that the chances of a rate hike have disappeared, if anything, the Fed may be forced to increase rates if it wants to get a head-start on the potential ‘Trumpflation’ the market has been so keen to price in during the last few sessions. Against both the euro and the pound the dollar took back more than 1%, leaving the former at a nine-month low and taking the latter back towards $1.245,” Campbell said.

The dollar was up 1.63% against the yen to 108.39, rose 1.26% against the euro to 1.0718 and climbed 1.1% against sterling to 1.2454.

Treasury bonds were under pressure, however, with the yield on the 10-year bond trading at its highest level since early January amid worries that Trump’s policies with be inflationary, causing the Fed to hike rates sooner than expected. Bond yields move inversely to prices.

In commodity markets, gold on Comex declined 0.96% to $1,212.50 per troy ounce at 1458 GMT.

Oil prices retreated while a PricewaterhouseCoopers report said it was unlikely that prices will return to $100 a barrel in the future, but could rise between $60 and $70 in the next few years.

Brent crude fell 1.26% to $44.19 per barrel and West Texas Intermediate was down 1.37% to $42.81 at 1458 GMT.

On the macroeconomic front, Chinese data released earlier was mixed as the country’s fixed-asset investment was up 8.3% in the January-to-October, ahead of forecasts, but industrial output and retail sales growth in October fell short of expectations.

In corporate news, German engineer Siemens agreed to buy Mentor Graphics Corp for $4.5bn. Mentor’s shares flew 18.9%.

Harman International Industries’ shares soared 25.4% as technology giant Samsung said it would acquire it for $8bn.

Shares in AMC Entertainment climbed 0.87% as the company is poised to win approval to buy Carmike Cinemas for $1.2bn, which would make it the largest cinema chain in the world.

Twitter’s shares edged higher by 1.75% after investor Jana partners disclosed that it had over 2.9m shares in the social media company.

The Treasury Department is to auction three and six-month bills at 1630 GMT.

The Feds’ Jeffrey Lacker is to talk at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland at 2200 GMT and John Williams is to speak in San Francisco at 2330 GMT.