Wall Street Today | Cost of breakfast foods hits 10-year high

Asian stocks looked set to climb early Monday as traders digested the outcome of Japan's election and fresh all-time highs for U.S. shares. The yen weakened and a dollar gauge was steady.

Futures advanced about 1% for Japan, where Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's Liberal Democratic Party preserved its outright majority, avoiding worst-case scenarios suggested by opinion polls. Australian shares pushed higher, while futures for Hong Kong slipped. U.S. contracts rose following records for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 on overall optimism about corporate earnings.

This week, U.S. economic growth came in lower than expected, some high-profile companies posted disappointing earnings results and central banks worldwide took steps toward withdrawing pandemic-era stimulus. Yet stocks are broaching new records and October shaped up to be the best month of the year.

To Wall Street veteran Doug Ramsey, Leuthold Group chief investment officer and co-manager of the Leuthold Core Fund, it looks like the market melt-up has just begun.

Elon Musk, the world's richest man, challenged a United Nations official's claim that just a small percentage of his wealth could help solve world hunger.

That's a decline from 62% in the preceding three-month period, according to a filing Friday from the brokerage.

Chris Harvey's reign as the year's biggest bull won't extend into next year.

The Wells Fargo Securities head of equity strategy, whose 2021 S&P 500 target is 4,825, predicts Wall Street will stage a vibrant year-end rally and then see a losing 2022. Harvey contends momentum names, which include banks, will be major drivers into year-end. He calls financials a "stealth leadership play" that will get traction from the Federal Reserve's taper plans.

October had the best ticket sale haul at the domestic box office of any month in 2021, generating $637.9 million in receipts. Many of the films released during the month were slated to open earlier in the year but were postponed due to the pandemic.

The cost of food commodities that make up a typical breakfast has soared to its highest point in a decade under the strain of bad weather and supply-chain crunches, providing another in a long list of upward pressures on global inflation.

The Financial Times breakfast indicator, based on futures prices for coffee, milk, sugar, wheat, oats and orange juice, has shot up 63 per cent since 2019, in a move that has accelerated since this summer.