Wall Street ends lower, capping a banner year

Wall Street ends lower, capping a banner year

By Stephen Culp

Tue December 31, 2024 8:06 PM

All three indexes started the day with some decent green only to begin declining almost immediately, going into the red by 11 a.m. and continuing downhill all day. So yes, it was yet another day that Santa Claus was conspicuously absent. Despite ending the year on a whimper, 2024 still had stellar results with the Nasdaq gaining 28.6%, the S&P 23.3% and the Dow 12.9%. The biggest winning sectors were communications, tech, and consumer discretionary, each advancing roughly between 29 and 39%.  

Investors remain cautious regarding the incoming Trump administration and the instability in geopolitics, particularly Ukraine and the Middle East. The chart below is a very nice eye-shot of the year’s performance in growth, value and FANG. Today’s Reuters market summary once again states that volume was light, but versus a 4-week average of 14.8 billion shares traded, it came in on this final day at 14.6 billion, which doesn’t seem light to me.  

DJ: 42,573.73  -418.48      NAS: 19,486.79  -235.25      S&P: 5,906.94  -63.90        12/30

DJ: 42,544.22  -29.51        NAS: 19,310.79  -175.99      S&P: 5,881.63  -25.31        12/31

Tue 12-31-24 8:06 pm Wall Street ends lower, capping a banner year | Reuters