S&P Futures Trade At Record High As Precious Metal Surge Accelerates

S&P Futures Trade At Record High As Precious Metal Surge Accelerates US equity futures are little changed in thin trading with most traders away from the screens, while the bulk of overnight actions was once again in gold and silver as precious metals soared to a new record high driven by feverish Chinese demand. As of 8:15am, S&P futures were flat after closing Wednesday's session at a new record high, while Nasdaq 100 futs were fractionally in the green. Asian markets were mostly higher while European bourses are closed. The dollar was unchanged as were treasuries, with the benchmark 10-year yield at 4.13%. There is no macro on today's calendar. In premarket trading, Mah 7 stocks were mixed (Nvidia +0.7%, Tesla +0.2%, Alphabet +0.1%, Apple little changed, Amazon -0.1%, Meta Platforms -0.1%, Microsoft -0.2%). Miners including Coeur (CDE) and Freeport (FCX) are higher as gold, silver and platinum jumped to all-time highs and copper surged to a record in Shanghai and rallied in New York. Biohaven (BHVN) drops 14% after a mid-stage study of the company’s experimental drug BHV-7000 for the treatment of major depressive disorder missed the primary endpoint. Coupang (CPNG) gains 6.3% after Yonhap News reported the e-commerce company has identified the former employee who allegedly accessed personal data of 33 million customers; the company has retrieved all hard disk drives and devices that the ex-worker used. As the Santa Rally accelerates, the MSCI All Country World Index gained 0.1%, rising for a seventh day, while a gauge of Asian stocks climbed 0.2%; Australia, Hong Kong and markets in Europe remain for holidays. Bloomberg’s index of the dollar held near the lowest since October. Treasuries were little changed, with the benchmark 10-year yield at 4.13%. Once again, the bulk of the overnight action was in gold and silver, which jumped as escalating geopolitical tensions and dollar weakness helped extend a historic rally for precious metals. Spot silver advanced for a fifth day, climbing as much as 5.2% to cross $75 an ounce for the first time. Gold, set for its best annual advance since 1979, rose as much as 1.2% to above $4,500 an ounce. Copper surged to a record in Shanghai and rallied in New York, adding to substantial annual gains as investors bet on tighter global supplies in 2026, while also pricing in the impact of a weaker US dollar. Meanwhile, the “Santa Claus Rally” which we said would be unleashed by Abu Dhabi's bailout of OpenAI's funding plans last week , is set to push stocks to fresh records even as exuberance over artificial intelligence and the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate path are being questioned. The rally is traditionally seen as taking place on the final five trading sessions of a year and the first two of the new one. Of course, the rally can well start early, and it did just that with the S&P 500 rising Wednesday for a fifth day in a shortened session ahead of the Christmas holiday. “As equity markets enter...

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