NEW YORK (Reuters) – The S&P 500 ended higher at the end of a shortened session on Thursday as investors entered the long Christmas weekend hoping an upcoming stimulus deal, Brexit deal and ongoing vaccine rollout will bring better days in the coming year.
All three major US stock indexes ended in positive territory.
For the holiday-shortened week, the S&P 500 fell lower, the Dow made nominal gains and the Nasdaq advanced.
While stocks tend to perform well in the closing days of December, a phenomenon known as the Santa Claus rally, the resurgent pandemic and the upcoming Senate run-offs in Georgia have clouded the outlook this year.
The U.S. House of Representatives blocked President Donald Trump’s attempt to change a $ 2.3 trillion coronavirus program and a government spending package after Trump pushed for $ 2,000 direct payments to Americans.
The move raised doubts as to whether the package passed by Congress on Monday would be signed into law and raised the threat of a partial government shutdown.
“If (stimulus) is not passed on in one form or another, it can have serious consequences for the unemployed,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New York.
Britain reached a trade deal with the European Union after months of negotiating, just days before it left one of the world’s largest trading blocs.
“(The Brexit deal) could act as a buffer to the market in that it counteracts the negativity of the stimulus law,” added Cardillo.
More than a million Americans are now vaccinated against COVID-19, even as the pandemic continues to rage in the United States and political leaders have had to guard against a more contagious variant of the disease spreading across Britain.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 70.04 points or 0.23% to 30,199.87, the S&P 500 gained 13.05 points or 0.35% to 3,703.06 and the Nasdaq Composite 33.62 points, or 0. 26%, up to 12,804.73.
Ten of the S&P 500’s 11 major sectors posted profits, led by real estate. Energy was the only loser.
Shares of Alibaba Group fell 13.3% after news that China had started an investigation into the company as part of its antitrust policy.
American Airlines Group Inc said it was moving forward with plans to recall employee leave even as upcoming pay protections, part of the stimulus package, were called into question. Its shares fell 1.4%
Moderna Inc said it expects its coronavirus vaccine to be effective against a new variant of the disease discovered in Britain. Still, his shares closed 5.3%.
Altimmune Inc dropped 9.3% after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a clinical shutdown on the company’s application to begin testing the single-dose COVID-19 vaccine, AdCOVID, on humans.
There were more problems than the diminishing problems on the NYSE at a ratio of 1.53 to 1; on Nasdaq, a ratio of 1.08 to 1 was in favor of the losers.
The S&P 500 posted 7 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the Nasdaq Composite registered 138 new highs and 5 new lows.
The volume on the US stock markets was 6.14 billion shares, compared to the average of 11.30 billion over the past 20 trading days.
Reporting by Stephen Culp; Editing by Aurora Ellis