The final full trading week of 2024 was a muted one as the Christmas holiday led to several days of lower trading activity. However, there were a couple of news announcements that market participants should be aware of heading into the new year.
On Monday, the Consumer Board Consumer Confidence report came in at 104.7, which was lower than the expected 112.9 and lower than last month’s 112.8. Also on Monday, new home sales were up to 664,000 from 627,000 in November. This was slightly lower than the expected 666,000 new home sales.
On Thursday, unemployment claims data came out and revealed that 219,000 people made requests for benefits over the past seven days. This was close to the expected 223,000 claims and was slightly lower than last week’s figure of 219,000.
The last couple weeks of the trading year are often considered ideal for traders as the so-called Santa Claus rally typically occurs during this period. The S&P 500 was up 2.27 percent over the past five trading days to close the week at 5,970. On Monday morning, the index hit its low of the week of 5,912 while it made a high of 6,043 on Thursday afternoon.
As with the S&P 500, the Dow would also finish the week higher, gaining 1.97 percent over the past five days. The weekly low of 42,551 was set on Monday morning while the high of the week occurred on Thursday afternoon when the index hit 43,348. It would close the week at 42,992, which is about 500 points away from the all-time high set earlier in 2024.
Finally, the Nasdaq was up 2.6 percent this week to finish at 19,722. This represented a gain of almost 500 points over the past five trading days with the market making its high of the week of 20,039 on Thursday. On Monday morning, the index made its low of the week when it dipped to 19,558.
There were a few announcements made by international central banks this week. On Monday, Canada announced that its gross domestic product (GDP) had gone up .3 percent in November compared to an expected .2 percent. On Thursday night, Japan announced that its inflation rate was 2.4 percent on an annualized basis, which was slightly lower than the projected 2.5 percent.
Thursday will see the release of unemployment claims for the last seven days while Friday sees the release of the ISM Manufacturing PMI.
Pending home sale data and other housing sales data will be released on Monday and Tuesday, which may cause some volatility prior to the new year. The only noteworthy news releases internationally include Monday’s release of the Spanish annual CPI rate and the Chinese Manufacturing PMI release on Tuesday evening.