- S&P 500 futures briefly hit a new all-time high of 3,029.62 on Monday, on fresh hopes that China and the U.S. will agree at least a temporary truce to their trade war in the coming weeks.
Over the weekend, both the U.S. and Chinese governments had indicated that technical preparations for their so-called 'phase-1' deal had made good progress, with the Chinese Ministry of Commerce saying in a statement that the groundwork was "basically completed". Risk appetite received a further boost on Monday morning when the European Union confirmed that it had offered the U.K. a three-month extension to the deadline for Brexit, definitively removing the risk of a disorderly rupture on Oct. 31.
By 7:26 AM ET (1226 GMT), the S&P 500 futures contract was at 3028.62, up 8 points, or 0.4%, from late Friday in New York. It hit its previous record high of 3,029.5 on July 26.
The Dow 30 futures contract was up 0.4% at 26,997, still short of its all-time high of 27,397.0.
