Fed meeting in focus, Cigna ends Humana pursuit - what's moving markets

investing.com:

Investing.com -- Markets gear up for an all-important Federal Reserve policy meeting this week, with comments from Fed Chair Jerome Powell likely to play a key role in expectations for possible future interest rate cuts by the U.S. central bank. Elsewhere, Cigna (NYSE:CI) reportedly ends talks to merge with rival Humana (NYSE:HUM), abandoning a deal that would have created a $140 billion insurance giant.

1. Futures mostly hug flatline

U.S. stock futures were widely muted on Monday as investors looked ahead to a much-anticipated Federal Reserve policy meeting later in the week.

By 05:02 ET (10:02 GMT), the Dow futures contract and S&P futures were broadly unchanged, while Nasdaq 100 futures had shed 17 points or 0.1%.

Both the benchmark S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite posted their highest closing levels since early 2022 in the prior session, while the 30-stock Dow Jones Industrial Average notched its sixth consecutive weekly gain — its longest streak of positive weeks since 2019.

A batch of jobs market data on Friday buoyed hopes that the Fed might be able to engineer a so-called «soft landing» for the U.S. economy. In this scenario, the central bank's aggressive string of interest rate hikes — which have pushed borrowing costs up to more than two-decade highs — would succeed in quelling elevated inflation without triggering a broader economic meltdown.

Figures showed that nonfarm payrolls increased by more than anticipated in November, average hourly earnings growth inched up on a monthly basis, and the unemployment rate dipped. Although the numbers pointed to a resilient labor market that could push up wages and inflation, they were more widely interpreted as a signal that the Fed's tightening cycle may not