Tech shares take lead in buoyant pre-holiday US session
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Dec 24 is the start of the “Santa Claus rally”, a seven-day stretch that has been a historically strong period for equities.
PHOTO: AFP
NEW YORK - Wall Street stocks finished a holiday-shortened session solidly higher on Dec 24, in a buoyant kick-off to a year-ending stretch that has been historically robust.
While gains were broad-based, some of the biggest positive moves came from tech heavyweights such as Facebook parent Meta, Netflix and Amazon, all of which won more than 1 per cent.
“There’s a pretty fair amount of enthusiasm for momentum” stocks, said Mr Jack Ablin from Cresset Capital, who also noted that low trading volumes amplified the trend.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 0.9 per cent at 43,297.03.
The broad-based S&P 500 gained 1.1 per cent to 6,040.04, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 1.4 per cent to 20,031.13.
Dec 24 is the start of the “Santa Claus rally”, a seven-day stretch that encompasses the final five trading days of the year and the first two days of the next that has been a historically strong period for equities.
Gainers included Starbucks, which climbed 2.8 per cent, rebounding somewhat from weakness over the last week as the company faced headlines over striking workers at a handful of US stores.
“A strike by unionised workers across a minuscule percentage of Starbucks’ total footprint in the US is not expected to weigh materially on the company’s operations,” said Briefing.com, which described the company’s main challenge as “re-energising demand”. AFP
