Day Traders Diary

12/26/24

The major averages closed mixed on a quiet trading day with the Dow eking out a gain for a fifth straight day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 28 points or .07%. The S&P 500 fell 2 points while the Nasdaq declined 10 points.

A quiet day for news as well. Retail in general had a good day as holiday spending seemed to hold in there. In the tech space, Apple rose modestly on an upgrade as its market cap closes in on $4 trillion. New AI chip darling, Broadcom continues its upward trend, rising 2% to a new high now worth $1.1 trillion.

Bonds were quiet on weaker economic data. The yield on the 10-year Treasury was flat at 4.58% while the 2-year Treasury fell a basis point to 4.32%. The jobless claims for the week ended Dec. 21 totaled 219,000, compared to the 225,000 consensus forecast from Dow Jones. Continuing claims, or recurring applications for unemployment benefits, rose to 1.91 million, reaching the highest level since Nov. 13, 2021.

Gold rebounded half a percent while oil and bitcoin were lower today.

Today's muted returns come after a solid Christmas Eve for the S&P 500. The benchmark's 1.1% gain on Tuesday marked its best Christmas Eve performance since 1974, according to Bespoke. The Santa Claus rally is still intact with the S&P 500 up 1.8% for the week while the Dow has gained 1.1%. The Nasdaq is up 2.3% week to date.

Month to date, the S&P 500 is up by 0.1%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq has rallied 4.2%, thanks to the strong gains in Tesla, Apple and Alphabet. The Dow is still lower for the month, down 3.5%.