Dow closes higher on first day of 2026, still no Santa Claus rally
By Saeed Azhar, Purvi
Agarwal and Nikhil
Sharma
Fri January 2, 2026 4:33 PM
Tech started well in the black this morning but then began an almost immediate pullback spending most of the rest of the session modestly in the red. Industrials on the other hand started in the red and quickly catapulted into the black, the Dow closing with a handsome 3-digit gain while the other two basically just broke even. The Santa Claus Rally has more or less been declared dead after having a first few very good days, But uncertainty over the economy and the future of AI put a damper on it this year, though ironically today in particular was a very good day for AI, chips being up 4%.
