U.S. stocks climbed Monday as investors cheered President-elect Donald Trump's choice for Treasury secretary ahead of a shortened Thanksgiving trading week.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded 360 points higher, or 0.8%. The S&P 500 gained 0.5%, and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.6%.

Trump signaled his intention to nominate Key Square Group founder Scott Bessent as Treasury secretary. Investors viewed the pick favorably and see the hedge fund manager as someone who will be supportive of the equity market and who may help mitigate some of Trump's most extreme protectionist policies.

"I would recommend that tariffs be layered in gradually," Bessent said to CNBC in an interview earlier this month before he was picked. "If you take that price adjustment coupled with all the other disinflationary things President Trump is talking about, we're going to be at or below the 2% inflation target again."

Treasury yields pulled back slightly, and the U.S. dollar index decreased following the Bessent pick late Friday.

"Supporters will argue that Mr. Bessent's career as a macro investor will provide him with an ability to understand the knock-on effects of President Trump's trade, tariff, tax, and deregulatory agenda," said Ed Mills, Raymond James Washington policy analyst, in a note to clients. "If Mr. Bessent can delay or limit an across-the-board tariff policy, while extending tax cuts, pushing deregulation (that increases energy production), all support U.S.-based industries — all supporting U.S. GDP growth — that would be cheered on by the market."

Wall Street is coming off a winning week as the postelection rally picked up again. The 30-stock Dow advanced around 2% last week and posted a record close on Friday. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite each rose about 1.7%, while the small-cap Russell 2000 jumped roughly 4.5% during the week.

U.S. markets are closed Thursday due to the Thanksgiving holiday and close early on Friday, so trading volume is likely to be light this week.

Despite this week's shortened trading week, the interest rate outlook is back in focus. In this vein, investors will monitor the release of October's personal consumption expenditure price index, the Federal Reserve's preferred inflation measure, on Wednesday. Minutes from the Fed's most recent policy meeting are also due out ahead of Thanksgiving.

Bath & Body Works jumped more than 18% after besting expectations of analysts polled by LSEG on both lines. Nordstrom, Best Buy, CrowdStrike and Dell Technologies are among well-known companies posting earnings results on Tuesday.

Stocks open higher

Stocks were in the green as the holiday-shortened kicked off Monday morning.

The Dow added about 350 points shortly after 9:30 a.m. ET. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite jumped 0.5% and 0.6%, respectively.

— Alex Harring

Target is once again a top pick, Oppenheimer says

Target is once again a top pick after its recent pullback, according to Oppenheimer.

"We are adding TGT back to top pick status," Rupesh Parikh wrote Monday. "In mid-October around the $157 level (note here), we removed TGT from our top pick ranking driven in part by our apparel clearance inventory observations. With the reset out of the way, we see a very compelling risk/reward scenario developing."

The analyst said he expects the stock is at or near a bottom after its recent underperformance. Target shares plunged 21% this past Wednesday after the big-box retailer cut its forecast, and posted its worst quarterly earnings miss in two years. It's down more than 12% this year.

But the analyst's 12-18 month price target of $165 represents more than 30% upside from Friday's closing price, at $125.01. The stock rose by 1.5% in the premarket.

"Key attractions for us include in our view: 1) shares appear to be at/near a bottom; 2) negative investor sentiment; 3) achievable Q4 guidance; 4) a path to 6% operating margins remains in play; and 5) potential support from an attractive dividend yield," he wrote.

— Sarah Min

Stocks making the biggest moves premarket

Check out some of the companies making headlines in premarket trading:

• Bath & Body Works — Shares popped 16% after third-quarter earnings edged out Wall Street forecasts. The retailer earned 49 cents per share, excluding items, on revenue of $1.61 billion, while analysts polled by LSEG had anticipated earnings of 47 cents a share and revenue of $1.58 billion.
• Robinhood — Shares of the brokerage firm rose more than 7% after Morgan Stanley upgraded the stock to overweight from equal weight. The investment firm said Robinhood's revenue growth could be stronger postelection due to more active trading of stocks and crypto deregulation.
• Macy's — Shares of the retailer fell 3% after Macy's said it was delaying its official third-quarter results due to discovering that an employee had intentionally made incorrect accounting entries to hide delivery expenses. The errors took place over several years and amounted to between $132 million and $154 million. Macy's said the accounting issues do not appeared to have had an effect on the company's cash position.

Read the full list here.

— Brian Evans

Macy's stock dips after disclosing accounting issue, net sales decline

Shares of Macy's dropped 3% after the retailer said it was delaying the official release of its third-quarter results due to an accounting issue.

Macy's said it discovered an employee had intentionally made incorrect accounting entries to hide delivery expenses. This amounted to an error of between $132 million $154 million over the course of multiple years, though it did not impact the company's cash management, according to the press release.

Macy's said that it now plans to release its official results by Dec. 11, and that the employee is no longer with the company.

The retailer did release preliminary results for the third quarter, which showed net sales down 2.4% year over year.

— Jesse Pound

Bath & Body Works pops on earnings beat

Bath & Body Works shares surged more than 11% in Monday premarket trading after third-quarter earnings topped Wall Street expectations.

The fragrance-focused retailer reported 49 cents in earnings per share, excluding items, on revenue of $1.61 billion. Analysts surveyed by LSEG had forecast just 47 cents a share and $1.58 billion, respectively.

This report comes amid a tough year for the stock. Shares are down nearly 29% in 2024.

— Alex Harring

MicroStrategy surges after big price target hike

MicroStrategy shares popped 7% in the premarket after a big price target increase from Bernstein. The firm cited the company's huge Bitcoin holdings as a catalyst for the updated forecast.

"We believe, Bitcoin is in a structural bull market with conducive regulation and U.S government support, institutional adoption and favorable macro (low rates, inflation risk and record fiscal debt)," the firm said. "MSTR's debt is long term, unsecured convertible, implying negligible risk to balance sheet liquidity from Bitcoin volatility."

— Sean Conlon

European markets open in the green

European markets opened higher Monday, with the pan-European Stoxx 600 index adding around 0.5% shortly after trading began.

Sectors broadly traded higher as household goods and autos stocks led gains, both adding around 1.3%. Healthcare and retail stocks, meanwhile, were the only sectors to pull back, dipping by around 0.2% and 0.1% respectively.

Regional bourses were higher, with France's CAC 40 adding close to 1%, Germany's DAX rising 0.7% and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 climbing 0.4%.

— Sophie Kiderlin

Australia notches record highs as Asia markets mostly rise

Asia-Pacific markets mostly rose Monday, with Australia's S&P/ASX 200 hitting fresh highs.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.28% to close at 8,417.6, hitting a new all-time closing high. The index also reached a new intraday high of 8,462.1 during the trading session.

On Monday, Singapore released its inflation figures for October. The country's headline inflation rate fell to 1.4%, the lowest rate of inflation since March 2021.

Japan's Nikkei 225 was up 1.3% up, ending at 38,780.14, while the broad-based Topix rose 0.71% to 2,715.6.

In contrast, Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell 0.3% in its last hour of trade, while mainland China's CSI 300 was down 0.46% to close at 3,848.09.

— Lim Hui Jie

Dollar index falls Sunday night

The dollar index declined 0.6% to 106.92 on Sunday. This marks a slight pullback from the index's 0.8% gain last week, during which it hit a one-year high.

The greenback also strengthened to its highest level since July against the yen last week. The dollar was last down 0.1% versus the yen at 154.17.

— Hakyung Kim

Stock futures open higher

U.S. stock futures started trading in the green Sunday night.

Dow Jones Industrial Average futures added 150 points, or 0.4%. Futures tied to the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 also gained 0.4% each.

— Hakyung Kim