Stocks steady near record highs as Reddit tears up the roof, value hits $ 6 billion

Stock futures opened roughly unchanged on Monday evening as equities paused after a six-day winning streak and  Reddit Inc. confirmed that it has raised $250 million from private investors, riding a wave of attention after users of the social media website drove a stock market frenzy.

Terms of the funding, led by Vy Capital, push the company’s valuation to $6 billion, a spokeswoman said.

Reddit intends to spend the cash to develop its advertising business, expand internationally and add video tools, the company said in a statement.

The stock market volatility of recent weeks was orchestrated by a forum on the site called WallStreetBets. GameStop Corp., AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., and silver were some of the bizarre targets of the movement, which had the stated goal of squeezing hedge funds that were selling those assets short. Reddit capitalized on the attention by running a five-second commercial during the Super Bowl that obliquely paid homage to WallStreetBets. Those five seconds ate up Reddit’s “entire marketing budget,” the ad reads. It should be able to afford more airtime after the new investment.

Earlier, the S&P 500 rose to a fresh record intraday and closing high. The Dow posted its best start to a February since 1931 with a month-to-date rise of 4.7%.

Bitcoin prices (BTC-USD), however, marched decidedly higher overnight to more than $44,000, adding to a record-setting rally triggered after Tesla (TSLA) announced that it had made an investment of  $1.5 billion in it.

Prospects for more stimulus by the Biden government has remained a major driver of equities over the past week.

But even in absence of additional stimulus, corporate America has already been showing signs of a stronger-than-expected rebound, with fourth-quarter earnings results blowing past estimates.

More than three-quarters of S&P 500 companies have so far reported earnings results, and 66% have beaten expectations for both sales and profit, according to a Bank of America analysis.

Companies including Twitter (TWTR) and Lyft (LYFT) will be among the companies to report quarterly earnings results on Tuesday.