US close: Stocks extend December rally

dl nyse new york stock exchange wall st street city finance dow jones nasdaq sp finance dollar dollars us usa united states of america — New York Stock ExchangeSharecast photo / Josh White

Wall Street stocks closed higher on Monday as investors looked ahead to the Federal Reserve's final meeting of the year.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.43% at 36,404.93, while the S&P 500 advanced 0.39% to 4,622.44 and the Nasdaq-100 saw out the session 0.20% firmer at 14,432.49.

The Dow closed 157.06 points higher on Monday, extending gains recorded in the previous session on the back of news that the US economy had added more jobs than expected in November.

No major data points were released on Monday, with traders instead patiently awaiting the outcome of the central bank's last policy meeting of 2023 on Wednesday, as well as key inflation data in the form of November's consumer and producer price indices, due out on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.

The Federal Reserve was widely expected to maintain its fed funds rate in the 5.25-5.5% range, with chairman Jerome Powell also expected to reiterate his commitment to lowering inflation.

In the corporate space, Macy's surged after news broke that the retailer had received a $5.8bn buyout offer from an investor group consisting of Arkhouse Management and Brigade Capital.

Elsewhere, Oracle shares headed south in extended trading after the tech firm posted revenues that fell short of estimates, even as cloud services demand continued to grow.

Still to come, tech giant Adobe and retailer Costco will deliver their latest quarterly reports on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com

Dow Jones - Risers

Intel Corp. (INTC) $44.54 4.31%
Nike Inc. (NKE) $118.61 2.33%
Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) $49.39 2.09%
Home Depot Inc. (HD) $331.33 1.49%
Boeing Co. (BA) $248.08 1.38%
McDonald's Corp. (MCD) $289.15 1.27%
Amgen Inc. (AMGN) $272.14 1.12%
International Business Machines Corporation (CDI) (IBM) $163.51 0.96%
Coca-Cola Co. (KO) $59.04 0.73%
Dow Chemical Co. (DOW) $51.28 0.71%