Stock market today: Asian markets are mixed, with most closed for holidays, after the S&P 500 hit 5,000

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Asian stocks were mixed on Monday as most regional markets were closed for holidays, while U.S. futures fell slightly after the S&P 500 closed above 5,000 last week.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 slipped 0.3% to 7,621.10 and India's Sensex rose 0.1% to 71,647.74. Thailand's SET rose 0.1% and in Jakarta the benchmark rose 0.6% ahead of Wednesday's elections.

With markets in mainland China closed this week for the Lunar New Year, there was little market-moving news. Markets in Tokyo were also closed on Monday for a one-day holiday.

This week there will be an important update from the US on consumer inflation expectations. Japan will report its GDP growth for the final quarter of 2023 on Thursday.

US price data is unlikely to have a major impact on monetary policy. “The good news, however, is that U.S. inflation likely fell at the start of the year, reinforcing expectations that the Federal Reserve could consider rate cuts in the coming months,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary .

On Friday, the S&P 500 rose 0.6% to close above 5,000 for the first time at 5,026.61. It was the 10th record in less than a month for the index, which completed its 14th winning week in the last 15 weeks, continuing a turmoil that began around Halloween.

The Nasdaq Composite rose 1.2%, coming within 0.4% of its own all-time high set in 2021. It closed at 15,990.66.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average remained a laggard, falling 0.1% to 38,749 a day after hitting the record high.

Wall Street's rally was fueled by hopes that cooling inflation will prompt the Federal Reserve to ease pressure by cutting interest rates.

Big tech stocks did most of the heavy lifting in the market on Friday, as they have done for more than a year, in part because of the mania surrounding artificial intelligence technology. Nvidia, Microsoft and Amazon were the three biggest forces lifting the S&P 500, each rising at least 1.6%.

Cloudflare became the latest company to soar after reporting higher-than-analysts-expected earnings for its latest quarter. The cloud services company rose 19.5% after announcing it had won both its largest new customer and contract renewal ever, despite a macroeconomic environment that “remains difficult to predict.”

Earnings for major companies in the S&P 500 have been mostly better than expected this reporting season, which is about two-thirds complete. That has boosted optimism on Wall Street, but critics say it may have gone too far and pushed stocks to too expensive heights.

Traders are flocking to some riskier assets quickly enough that a contrarian move from Bank of America leans more toward “sell now” than “buy,” even if the values ​​aren't compelling. The measurement measures how much fear and greed is in the market and suggests buying in October when fear reached a compelling peak.

In other trading on Monday, U.S. benchmark crude lost 38 cents to $76.46 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On Friday it rose 62 cents.

Brent crude, the international standard, lost 37 cents to $81.82 a barrel.

The US dollar fell to 149.24 Japanese yen from 149.28 yen. The euro rose to $1.0792 from $1.0784.