Fresh record highs for both the Dow and S&P500 ahead of the Federal Reserve's final monetary policy meeting of the year that kicks off tonight AEST - Dow up +57-points or +0.23% and the broader S&P500 +0.32%, The technology-centric NASDAQ added +0.51% to close within 1% of its record all-time high. Investors shrugged off news of a failed terrorist attack at New York City's Port Authority bus terminal. Bitcoin also made its futures debut yesterday on the Chicago-based Cboe exchange albeit in relatively thin trading. Bloomberg data reported that ~US$50.2M of bitcoin futures contracts changed hands. By way of comparison, ~US$4.9B of copper futures traded over the same period, while ~US$3.6B of Nasdaq front-month futures traded. In early trade on the Cboe Futures Exchange, the January bitcoin contract traded as high as US$18,850 to the dollar, having opened around US$15,000. Trading was halted twice, first for two minutes then for five, after the abrupt rise triggered ‘circuit breakers’ aimed at easing excessive volatility.
