Dow Jones up 80 points, but off session highs in final hour of trade

U.S. stocks were trading below the session’s highs in the final hour of trade, but still were on pace to book their biggest month of gains of the year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
+0.02%
was about 80 points higher, or 0.2%, trading near 35,499. That’s off the session high of 35,579.13. The S&P 500 index
SPX,
-0.14%
was up 0.1%, while the Nasdaq Composite Index was less than 0.1% higher, according to FactSet. The big catalyst for the November rally has been tumbling rates used to finance the economy. The 10-year Treasury yield
TMUBMUSD10Y,
4.266%
was down 7 basis points to 4.27% on Wednesday, after briefly eclipsing 5% in October. A significant driver of the yield pullback has been hopes that the Federal Reserve already may be done hiking interest rates in this cycle, and that cut rates next year look likely.