Traders work on the New York Stock Exchange floor on Dec. 18, 2024.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images
Stocks jumped Tuesday on Christmas Eve as the market pulled off back-to-back gains in the holiday week.
The S&P 500 added 1.1% to 6,040.04, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 390.08 points, or 0.91%, to 43,297.03. The Nasdaq Composite climbed 1.35% to 20,031.13, helped by a 7.4% jump in Tesla shares. Amazon and Meta Platforms gained more than 1% each.
The New York Stock Exchange closed early at 1 p.m. ET for Christmas Eve, while the bond market closes at 2 p.m. The market is also shut on Wednesday for Christmas Day.
Tuesday marked 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.
“There’s a lot of good to think about, but I think at the same time, you want to be restrained in your enthusiasm here because the market has rallied,” Paul Hickey, Bespoke Investment Group co-founder, said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
With two straight winning days, the S&P 500 is up 1.8% this week, while the Dow has gained about 1%. The strong rally in megacap tech lifted the Nasdaq up 2.3% week to date.
The S&P 500 also turned green for the month with a 0.1% gain after this week’s advance. The tech-heavy Nasdaq has rallied 4.2% in December, with Google parent Alphabet up 16%, Apple up nearly 9% and Tesla rallying about 34% month to date. The blue-chip Dow, however, is still down about 3.6% in December, on pace for its worst monthly performance since April.
American Airlines shares fluctuated Tuesday 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. The stock ended the session up 0.6%.
