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By Nicholas
Jasinski | Thursday, December 30 Ho,
Ho-Hum. Stocks gave up their
morning gains today, selling off into the close to snap a six-day winning
streak for the Dow Jones
Industrial Average. The S&P
500 and
Dow had earlier set intraday records, adding to their all-time high closes
from Wednesday. There wasn’t much in the way of
market-moving headlines this morning or afternoon, initially leaving the
Santa Claus rally to continue through the morning. But the jolliness eased
through the day, and stocks gradually pulled back from their morning
highs. Evidently the Grinch appeared around 3:30 p.m., pushing the
market into the red by the close. The Dow closed down 91 points, or
0.2%, after having been up 190 points at its highs of the day. The
S&P 500 index gave up an earlier gain to close down 0.3%, while
the Nasdaq Composite likewise reversed course to finish 0.2%
lower. Trading remains quiet during the holiday
period, with well-below-average activity on U.S. exchanges. The past few days
have been among the lowest trading-volume days of 2021. In the absence of major news or substantial
economic data this week, seasonality appears to be in the driver’s seat.
Historically, the stock market tends to rise over the last few trading days
of each year—the so-called Santa Claus rally. This year was no exception,
with indexes hitting record highs yesterday and still on pace for a winning
week. Elsewhere, this morning's data included last
week's initial jobless claims. The
seasonally adjusted number of individuals filing for unemployment benefits
for the first time fell to 198,000 for the week ended Dec. 25, according to
the Labor Department. That’s a
decrease of 8,000 initial jobless claims week over week and below the 205,000
expected. It brings the average over the past four
weeks to below 200,000—the lowest since 1969. It’s a job seeker’s market out
there. Treasury markets weren’t signaling a
plethora of economic optimism today, however. The yields on short-term
Treasuries rose slightly, while long-term bond yields fell. That’s a
flattening of the Treasury yield curve, after a big steepening move on
Wednesday. The yield on the closely watched 10-year
Treasury note was down slightly to
1.52%, still near its highest levels in a month. Oil prices settled slightly higher, with West
Texas Intermediate crude up 0.6%, to $76.99 a
barrel. That price began 2021 at around $50. In cryptocurrency markets, Bitcoin continued a multi-day slide. The price was
down 0.5%, to about $47,160, around 4 p.m. That brings its declines
since the weekend to nearly 10%. The worst performing stock in the S&P
500 today was yesterday's biggest winner: Biogen. Shares closed
down 7.1% today after Samsung Group denied a
report that it was in talks to acquire the drugmaker. Biogen
stock had climbed 9.5% on yesterday on the report. Barron's is now accepting nominations for the third
annual Barron's 100 Most Influential Women in U.S. Finance.
The deadline for submissions is Jan. 15, 2022. Apply here. Watch our TV show on Fox
Business at special times this week: Friday at 6 p.m. ET; Saturday at 11
a.m. ET; or Sunday at 10 a.m. or 11:30 a.m. ET. This week, see an
interview with former Google CEO Eric Schmidt on artificial intelligence and the future of
tech. |
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DJIA: -0.25% to
36,398.08 The Hot Stock: Penn
National Gaming +4.5% Best Sector: Real Estate +0.45% |
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