Day Traders Diary

12/27/24

The major averages fell once again as no Santa Clause rally following Christmas. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 333 points or 0.77%, the first decline in six sessions. The S&P 500 fell 66 points or 1.11% while the Nasdaq Composite fell nearly 300 points or 1.49% to 19,722.03.

A weak day for the all the tech darlings as Tesla fell 4%, Palantir fell 3% while Nvidia fell 2%. In the chip space, only AMD was modestly higher.

Not many stocks closed higher today. Within the S&P 500 only a few defensive stocks, utilities and some oil stocks were higher.

For the week, the Dow squeezed out a 0.3% gain, snapping a three-week losing streak. The S&P 500 advanced 0.7% this week after posting its best Christmas Eve performance since 1974 on Tuesday, according to Bespoke. The Nasdaq was also higher, up 0.7% for the week.

Treasury yields this week may have put pressure on equities. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury rose more than 4 basis points today to 4.627%, its highest level since May. The 2-year Treasury was modestly lower today closing at 4.31%.

Oil prices settled more than 1% higher today, recording a weekly gain on optimism of improving demand in China while recent data showed a larger-than-expected drawdown of U.S. crude inventories.

Even with the recent sell off, the Nasdaq is on pace for a 2.6% monthly gain thanks to Tesla, Alphabet and Apple which is closing in on the $4 trillion market cap. The S&P 500 is down 1% on the month. The Dow is on pace for its worst month since April, with a roughly 4.3% decline.