Stock market today: Santa Claus rally kicks off with near-400 point gains for Dow Jones
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- US stocks rose in a shortened holiday trading session, with tech stocks leading gains.
- The Santa Claus trading window, a bullish 7-day trading period, officially began Tuesday.
- Historical data shows the S&P 500 gains 1.3% on average during this period.
US stocks jumped in a shortened holiday trading session on Tuesday with the Dow Jones Industrial Average gaining close to 400 points as of the 1 p.m. market close.
Stocks gained across the board led by the tech-heavy Nasdaq index. Some of the biggest gainers were mega-cap tech stocks like Tesla, which was up 6%. Broadcom, Netflix, and Amazon all ended the shortened trading day higher about 2%.
Tuesday also marked the official start of the Santa Claus trading window — a historically bullish period for stocks during the last five trading days of the year and the first two trading days of the new year.
Historical data dating back to 1950 shows that the S&P 500 has posted an average return of 1.3% and is positive 79% of the time during the Santa Claus trading window.
The average gain during the Santa Claus trading window is even stronger, at 1.6%, when including stock returns going back to 1928, according to data from Bank of America.
Here's where US indexes stood at the 1:00 p.m. closing bell on Tuesday:
- S&P 500: 6,040.04, up 1.10%
- Dow Jones Industrial Average: 43,297.03, up 0.91% (+390 points)
- Nasdaq composite: 20,031.13, up 1.35%
Here's what else is going on:
- American Airlines briefly grounded all of its flights on Tuesday due to a technical glitch.
- The probability of a US recession in 2025 is 0%, according to a top economist.
- Consumer confidence dropped to near-recession levels ahead of Donald Trump's second administration.
- These are the four areas of the stock market set to surge in 2025, according to a strategist.
- Here is a complete rundown of Wall Street's 2025 S&P 500 targets.