Merchants work on the ground on the New York Inventory Change on Dec. 10, 2024.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
The S&P 500 rose on Monday to start out a holiday-shortened buying and selling week as the continual energy in know-how shares helped the broader market
The big-cap fairness benchmark gained 0.4%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 0.8%, as Tesla, Meta and Nvidia all climbed no less than 2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Common was the relative underperformer, dipping 65 factors.
Buying and selling is anticipated to be comparatively muted through the week. The New York Inventory Change closes early Tuesday for Christmas Eve at 1 p.m. ET, and the market is shut on Christmas Day.
Weak financial knowledge appeared to bitter the sentiment a bit earlier within the session. The Convention Board’s client confidence index for December fell to 104.7, its lowest degree since September and under a Dow Jones estimate of 113.0. In the meantime, orders for sturdy items — usually big-ticket gadgets akin to plane, home equipment and computer systems — fell 1.1% in November, the biggest month-over-month drop since June. The blue-chip Dow declined greater than 300 factors at one level Monday after the disappointing knowledge.
The market is coming off a roller-coaster journey that noticed the blue-chip Dow endure a 10-day dropping streak, its longest since 1974. The Dow tumbled 1,100 factors Wednesday after the Federal Reserve signaled fewer price cuts for 2025 than beforehand projected. A cooler-than-expected inflation studying on the finish of the week helped shares recoup among the losses.
Month up to now, the 30-stock Dow is down 4.6% in December, whereas the S&P 500 is off 1.7%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite bucked the downtrend, rising 1.8% this month.
Traders have been reassured that federal companies will keep open into the brand new yr after President Joe Biden signed a funding invoice Saturday that averted a authorities shutdown. The invoice funds federal companies at present ranges for the following three months.
Santa rally?
Some traders had been hopeful {that a} so-called Santa Claus rally might assist the market finish 2024 on a excessive notice, particularly following a tumultuous week. Relationship again to 1969, the S&P 500, on common, added 1.3% within the final 5 buying and selling days of the yr and the primary two in January, in line with the Inventory Dealer’s Almanac.
The second half of December can also be usually the second-strongest interval of the yr for U.S. equities, and the S&P 500 has been up 83% of the time in December of presidential election years, in line with Financial institution of America.
“With the market’s main uptrends nonetheless intact, we aren’t giving up on the potential for a Santa Claus to come back to Broad & Wall this yr,” Craig Johnson, chief market technician at Piper Sandler, mentioned in a notice.
