On Friday, Wall Street’s major indexes were expected to start the day higher because of hopes that a solution may be made over the weekend to prevent a disastrous default on the nation’s debt.

In the first hour of trading, S&P 500 futures achieved a 15-week high, while Nasdaq e-minis broke through levels not touched in nine months.

The upbeat trend persisted for most of the week as investors monitored developments in the negotiations between top U.S. politicians to reach an agreement on raising the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling.

President Joe Biden and Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy have expressed increasing optimism about reaching a deal shortly. However, they may run into last-minute resistance from the extreme House Freedom Caucus.

According to Jason Pride, Glenmede’s head of investment strategy and research, “the (investor) optimism is surrounding the comments being made by politicians regarding the resolution of the debt ceiling issue.”

At 8:30 a.m. ET, the S&P 500 was up 12.25 points, or 0.29%, the Nasdaq 100 was up 6 points, or 0.04%, and the Dow was up 101 points, or 0.3%.

Later in the day, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is scheduled to participate in a panel discussion at an economic symposium. This presentation will be closely watched for any more hints about the direction of U.S. monetary policy. Ben Bernanke, a former panellist and chair, is also anticipated to attend.

“He (Powell) should be articulating a need for the Fed to remain committed to bringing inflation down and committed to its path of interest rate hikes and tightening of monetary policy … he is going to articulate data dependency on that,” Pride said.

Regional banks showed signs of steadying after wild swings in recent weeks, with the KBW Regional Banking index up 8.5% for the week. It was also set to mark its best performance since early January last year.

Due to encouraging debt limit negotiations, less-than-feared profits, and encouraging economic data, the benchmark S&P 500 index and the Nasdaq were poised for their greatest weekly performance since late March.

The S&P 500 banking index will break the three-week losing trend, expected to close the week 5.3% higher.

Deere (NYSE:DE) & Co. saw a 3.5% increase after increasing its year net income prediction thanks to strong agricultural revenues.

According to a source, Samsung Electronics (OTC:SSNLF) won’t be switching its default search engine anytime soon from Google to Microsoft’s Bing, Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Inc. saw a 1.2% increase.

Foot Locker (NYSE:FL) Inc. stock fell 25.1% after the footwear retailer lowered its annual sales and profit projections due to a severe decline in demand and an impact from steep discounts intended to remove surplus inventory.

Under Armour Inc. (NYSE:UAA) and Nike Inc. (NYSE:NKE) both experienced declines of 2.6% and 2.8%, respectively.

After CEO James Gorman declared he would step down from the position over the next 12 months, Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) experienced a 0.4% decline.