Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
NYSE
US stock futures opened along the flatline Sunday evening ahead of the first session of 2021 after a volatile trading year.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell just 37 points or 0.1%. S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures declined marginally.
Both the Dow and S&P 500 closed at record highs on Thursday, the last trading day of 2020, to end a year of surprisingly strong gains.
The 30-stock Dow ended last year with an advance of 7.3% and the S&P 500 was up 16.3% during that time. At one point in 2020, the two market benchmarks had fallen more than 30% as the coronavirus pandemic ravaged the global economy.
The real highlight of 2020 was the Nasdaq Composite, which was up 43.6% on its biggest gain in a year since 2009. The Nasdaq’s outperformance came as investors and traders flocked to tech stocks during the Covid-19 outbreak. .
Unprecedented fiscal and monetary support for the economy – coupled with the development and rollout of multiple Covid-19 vaccines – helped the market recover from the massive decline to trade at all-time highs.
“The stock market is positioned for further gains in 2021 based on the two pillars of coordinated fiscal and monetary policy of the US Treasury and Federal Reserve Board and a successful rollout of the COVID vaccine,” wrote Marc Chaikin, CEO of Chaikin Analytics. . “However, we foresee some bumps in the road.”
The rollout of multiple Covid-19 vaccines in the US has recently slowed due to supply restrictions.
Moncef Slaoui, the head of Operation Warp Speed, said on Sunday that the US could speed up the introduction of vaccines by giving a group of Americans half a dose of the drug Moderna developed. “We know that for the Moderna vaccine, giving half the dose for people between the ages of 18 and 55 … induces an identical immune response to the 100 microgram dose,” Slaoui said.
The number of coronavirus cases also continues to rise in the US, raising concerns about the speed of the economic recovery in 2021. Data collected by Johns Hopkins University showed that more than 20 million Covid-19 infections have been confirmed in the United States. US, along with more than 1.8 million virus-related deaths. Several cases of a new strain of coronavirus have also been confirmed across the country.
Wall Street is also watching Georgia as the state prepares for a second Senate election on Tuesday, which could give Democrats a majority in the chamber.
“With the second election in Georgia on Tuesday and the drama of the electoral colleges on Wednesday, this week you expect two-way trade and an increase in volatility in the short term,” Chaikin added.
Subscribe to CNBC PRO for exclusive insights and analysis, and live programming of working days from around the world.