Stock market today: Indexes jump to kick off 2025 as market aims to snap 4-day losing streak
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- Indexes rose Thursday to kick off the New Year, looking to break a four-day streak of losses.
- Shares of chipmakers Nvidia and Broadcom rose. Tesla dropped on weak delivery figures.
Stock indexes gained Thursday in their first trading session of the New Year to pare some losses after four straight negative trading days.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose almost 200 points, while the benchmark S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite also edged up. Bond yields dipped, with the 10-year Treasury yield moving down two basis points to 4.555%
Chipmakers like Nvidia and Broadcom gained, and crypto-linked stocks, like software firm MicroStrategy, also rose. However, Tesla fell over 6% after the carmaker its first annual drop in deliveries.
The market's positive open follows four consecutive days of losses in the final trading days of 2024. Still, the S&P 500 surged 23% to notch back-to-back annual gains of over 20%.
The indexes' rebounds restore some hope in a so-called Santa Claus rally, a period stretching from the last five trading days of the year into the first two of January, a time when markets tend to do well.
Overall, analysts are bullish that 2025 will prove another year of strong growth, albeit at a slower pace. Wall Street's average 2025 year-end price target for the S&P 500 this year is 6,539, which implies a potential gain of about 11% from the index's current levels.
Initial jobless claims, meanwhile, fell unexpectedly to 211,000 last week, marking a drop of 9,000. Economists had expected 222,000 claims for the week.
Here's where US indexes stood shortly after the 9:30 a.m. opening bell on Thursday:
- S&P 500: 5,902.13, up 0.34%
- Dow Jones Industrial Average: 42,736.90, up 0.45% (+192.05 points)
- Nasdaq composite: 19,322.30, up 0.06%
Here's what else is happening:
- These were the 10 best-performing S&P 500 stocks in 2024
- 3 crypto billionaires were the biggest net worth gainers during the market's stellar rally in 2024
- Rate cuts, strong employment, and lower prices: 5 bullish predictions for 2025 from Goldman Sachs
In commodities, bonds, and crypto:
- West Texas Intermediate crude oil rose 2% to $73.17 a barrel. Brent crude, the international benchmark, was up 1.8% to $76.05 a barrel.
- Gold was up 0.8% to $2,662 an ounce.
- The 10-year Treasury yield dipped two basis points to 4.555%.
- Bitcoin was up 3% to trade at $96,568.