Dow climbs more than 200 points in shortened trading on Christmas Eve
Stocks rose Tuesday on Christmas Eve as the market sought to squeeze out back-to-back gains in the holiday week.
The S&P 500 added 0.8%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 260 points, or 0.6%. The Nasdaq Composite climbed 1%, helped by a 5% jump in Tesla shares. Amazon and Nvidia gained more than 1% each.
Trading is expected to be thin this week. On Tuesday, the New York Stock Exchange closes early at 1 p.m. ET for Christmas Eve, while the bond market closes at 2 p.m. The market is also closed on Wednesday for Christmas Day.
Tuesday marks the start of the seasonal Santa Claus rally, which happens in the last five trading days of the year and the first two in January. Since 1950, the S&P 500 has generated an average return of 1.3% during this period, widely outpacing the market’s average seven-day return of 0.3%, according to LPL Research.
“There’s a lot of good to think about, but I think at the same time, you want to be restrained in your enthusiasm here because the market has rallied,” Paul Hickey, Bespoke Investment Group co-founder, said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
The stock market began the holiday-shortened week on a positive note, aided by tech names and semiconductor stocks. The S&P 500
rose 0.7% and the Nasdaq Composite closed Monday about 1% higher. The 30-stock Dow also finished up nearly 0.2%.
So far this month, the blue-chip Dow is down about 4%, on pace for its worst monthly performance since April. The S&P 500 is now just 0.1% down on the month after a three-day winning streak. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was the outperformer with a 3.9% gain in December, with Google parent Alphabet up nearly 16%, Apple up almost 10% and Tesla rallying 30% month to date.
American Airlines shares fluctuated Tuesday after the carrier briefly grounded all flights in the U.S. due to a technical issue on one of the busiest travel days of the year.(Cay)
Source: CNBC
