US equity markets rallied sharply to kick off a holiday-shortened trading week amid renewed optimism around a December interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve - Dow rose +203-points or +0.44%. Amazon.com Inc (up +2.53%) said it will spend as much as $US50B expanding its capacity to provide artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing services to US government entities. Amazon Web Services (AWS) plans to break ground next year on what will ultimately be 1.3 gigawatts of additional capacity across data centres designed for federal agencies, the company said in a blog post overnight. Goldman Sachs Group Inc (+2.15%), International Business Machines (IBM) Corp (+2.25%), Merck & Co (+2.70%) and Nvidia Corp (+2.05%) also rallied over >2%. However, Procter & Gamble Co (-2.61%), Verizon Communications Inc (-2.47%) and Walt Disney Co (-2.24%) all fell over >2%.