Wall Street All Smiles, at Least for a Day

It's too late for a full-blown Santa Claus rally, but the markets on Thursday at least got an “abbreviated one-day version of a Santa rally," as Louis Novellier of investing firm Navellier & Associates puts it to CNBC. The Dow rose 345 points, or 1%, to 33,220; the S&P 500 rose 66 points, or 1.7%, to 3,849; and the Nasdaq rose 264 points, or 2.5%, to 10,478. The AP notes that 95% of stocks in the benchmark S&P rose for the day, with tech stocks leading the way. Tesla, which had been hammered of late, rose 6.2%, while Apple rose 3% and Microsoft 2.7%.

After days of losses, "we were overdue for a rebound, and a lot of the recent weakness may be explained by further tax loss selling once the Santa rally didn’t materialize,” says Novellier. “We’ll have further volatility into the new year with plenty of uncertainty about whether a soft landing is possible and if not how much resolve the Fed will have to not pivot if we tip into a serious recession.” Even if Friday also is a strong day, it's unlikely to wipe out December losses, the last month in a lousy year for the market. The S&P, for example, is off about 20% in 2022. (More stock market stories.)