Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during morning trading on Nov. 26, 2024.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite rose to new records to begin December trading as the indexes added to November’s hefty gains.
The S&P 500 added 0.24% to close at 6,047.15. The Nasdaq Composite added 0.97% and ended at 19,403.95. Both indexes touched fresh all-time intraday highs and closed at records. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.29%, or 128.65 points, closing at 44,782.00. The blue-chip index briefly topped the 45,000 level during the day, a key threshold it hit a few times last week.
Shares of Tesla gained about 3.5% following an upgrade to buy from neutral at Roth MKM, with the firm citing CEO Elon Musk’s close relationship with President-elect Donald Trump as a catalyst. Artificial intelligence server maker Super Micro Computer surged nearly 29% after a special committee found “no evidence of misconduct” and that the firm’s financial statements were “materially accurate.” Meanwhile, Amazon added more than 1% amid the start of the holiday shopping season on Cyber Monday.
November marked the best month of 2024 for both the Dow and S&P 500, with the two gaining 7.5% and 5.7%, respectively, for the period. Most of the gains came in a postelection rally after Trump emerged as the winner of the presidential race. Both indexes notched closing highs in Friday’s shortened trading session.
S&P 500, YTD
Small-cap stocks were also a winner in November as investors saw the group benefiting from Trump’s potential tax cuts. The Russell 2000 surged more than 10% in the month, also notching its biggest monthly gain of the year.
December is traditionally a good month for stocks, but Jay Hatfield, founder and CEO of InfraCap, only sees the market range-bound into the end of 2024.
“I think we’ll grind higher, but not rocket higher,” he told CNBC, citing 6,200 as a potential year-end estimate for the S&P 500. This is less than 3% above where the benchmark closed on Friday. “I think we’ve priced in the upside from the new, pro-business administration, and now we need to get details — not just tweets — but details of what the policy is.”
On Monday, freshly released economic data indicated that the U.S. manufacturing sector improved in November, although it still remained in contraction. That came ahead of the November jobs report, due out Friday morning.
