U.S. equity futures were little changed on Monday, as Wall Street started the shortened Thanksgiving holiday week. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 34 points, or 0.1%. S&P 500 futures were down 0.1%, and Nasdaq-100 futures dipped 0.05%. Microsoft shares were up more than 1% after CEO Satya Nadella said former OpenAi chief Sam Altman will be joining the tech giant to lead a new AI research team. U.S. markets will be closed Thursday due to the Thanksgiving holiday. Friday will also be a shortened trading day. Trading around the Thanksgiving holiday has been choppy in recent years, but November is still the best-performing month for the S&P 500, according to the Stock Traders’ Almanac. Despite the short week, there are some key catalysts for the market ahead. Nvidia reports earnings Tuesday. The chipmaker is this year’s best-performing stock, up more than 200%. Wall Street is coming off a winning weekly performance. The S&P 500 closed last week higher by 2.2% and the Dow added 1.9%, marking the first three-week streak for the indexes since July. The Nasdaq Composite finished the week higher by 2.4%, notching its best week since June. Market bulls remain enthusiastic into year-end, particularly after cooler-than-expected U.S. inflation data released last week calmed investors’ nerves about stubbornly high prices and provided a hopeful indication that the Federal Reserve could stop raising interest rates. “We remain positive on equities and expect a broadening of the rallies recently experienced as the US economy continues on a sustainable economic expansion albeit at a modest pace,” wrote John Stoltzfus, chief investment strategist at Oppenheimer. U.S. Treasury yields were slightly higher on Monday as investors considered the economic outlook and as they assessed the chances that the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate hiking cycle is over. At 7:21 a.m. ET, the yield on the 10-year Treasury was over 4 basis points higher at 4.486%. It had briefly touched its lowest level since September with 4.379% on Friday. The 2-year Treasury yield was little changed at 4.913%. Asia-Pacific markets were mostly higher on Monday after most major bourses ended lower in the previous session, while China left its benchmark lending rates unchanged. The People’s Bank of China’s one-year loan prime rate — the peg for most household and corporate loans in China — was at 3.45%. The five-year benchmark loan rate — the peg for most mortgages — stood at 4.2%. Japan’s Nikkei 225 briefly touched a 33-year high earlier in the session, but struggled to hold on to gains afterwards. The index was down 0.59% and ended at 33,388.03, while the Topix fell 0.77% to 2,372.6. Hong Kong stocks led declines in Asia-Pacific on Friday, as shares of Alibaba plunged after the Chinese e-commerce giant said it would not proceed with the full spinoff of its cloud group. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rebounded and rose 1.77% in the final hour of trading, while China’s CSI 300 ended 0.23% higher at 3,576.32. South Korea’s Kospi rose about 0.86% to close at 2,491.2, while the small-cap Kosdaq saw a larger gain of 1.75% to end at 813.08. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.13% to finish at 7,058.4. Oil futures rose more than $1 on Monday, extending gains on the prospect of OPEC+ deepening supply cuts to shore up prices after four weeks of decline on demand worries and concern over Middle East supply disruption owing to the Israel-Hamas conflict. Brent crude futures rose $1.19, or 1.5%, to $81.80 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was up $1.12, or 1.5%, at $77.01. The front-month December WTI contract expires later on Monday while the more active January futures gained $1.15 to $77.19. Gold prices on Monday slipped from their two-week highs hit in the last session, as U.S. Treasury yields bounced back, with investors looking forward to the minutes of Federal Reserve’s last meeting to gauge the U.S. central bank’s policy stance. Spot gold was down 0.4% at $1,971.40 per ounce, after rising as high as $1,993.29 on Friday. U.S. gold futures fell 0.6% to $1,973.70.