Day Traders Diary

12/24/24

The major averages climbed higher on Christmas Eve to squeeze out back-to-back gains for the start of a Santa Clause rally this shortened holiday week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 390 points or 0.91%. The S&P 500 rose 65 points or 1.1% while the Nasdaq Composite jumped 266 points or 1.35%. The markets did close at 1pm.

Today 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.

The recent winners in the tech space like Palantir and Tesla continued to shine as both rose 4%. In the retail space, Walmart and Target were higher as they seem to be having good holiday season sales. Mattel and Hasbro were modestly higher as well.

On the downside, American Airlines took a hit this morning 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.

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% lower on the month after a three-day winning streak. The tech-heavy Nasdaq continues to outperform 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.