Good evening and welcome to Markets Desk.
Equities closed in the green Monday as big tech led the charge, with the S and P five hundred gaining nearly two thirds of a percent and the Nasdaq one hundred adding close to nine tenths. Investors leaned into growth names, pushing December E-mini S and P futures higher alongside the cash close, a clean risk-on session with broad participation across the tape.
Shifting to commodities, cocoa prices surged for a second straight session, settling up more than three and a half percent in New York to post two-week highs. The culprit is excessive rainfall across the Ivory Coast slowing deliveries at a time when supply margins are already thin. Traders are watching West African weather patterns closely as the December contract continues to press higher.
On the regulatory front, the CFTC made a significant move Sunday, opening rulemaking for two new frameworks that would create a federal pathway for retail crypto leverage trading on domestic exchanges. With Congress still deadlocked on broader market structure legislation, the agency is essentially stepping into the vacuum, a development that could pull meaningful volume back onshore from offshore platforms.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
