Wall Street ended Thursday much as it began in muted trading:
- The S&P 500 ticked up a single point to 4,783.
- The Dow gained 53 points to 37,710.
- The Nasdaq fell 4 points to 15,095.
The broader market remained mostly quiet ahead of the final trading day of the year. The S&P 500 is on track for its ninth straight week of gains, a two-month rally that has pushed the benchmark index closer to breaking its all-time high set in January of 2022, per the AP. (It closed at 4,796.56 for that mark.) Technology and communication company stocks had some of the biggest gains Thursday and helped lead the market higher. Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices rose 2.2% and Facebook's parent, Meta Platforms, rose 0.9%. Apple rose 0.4% after two Apple Watch models went back on sale amid a patent dispute.
Companies are close to wrapping up their latest financial quarter, and the next big batch of news will come when they start releasing those results later in January. Overall, companies in the S&P 500 have notched relatively strong profit gains after stumbling during the first half of 2023. That has given Wall Street more hope the economy will remain strong in 2024. Analysts polled by FactSet expect companies in the S&P 500 to report earnings growth of 1.4% in the fourth quarter and say profit growth should accelerate next year.
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