(New York) The New York Stock Exchange finished strong higher on Monday, with the S&P 500 index at a new record, entering the last week of the year which is often positive for the market, according to statistics.
According to final results at the close, the Dow Jones index gained 0.98% to 36,302.38 points.
The tech-heavy NASDAQ advanced 1.39% to 15,871.26 points while the S&P 500, also taking 1.39%, posted a second straight record at 4,791.19 points.
“In this season, the trend favors risky assets and Wall Street hopes to end the year on a traditional ‘Santa Claus’ leap (Santa Claus Rally),” said analysts from Wells Fargo.
“Historically, during the last five sessions of the year, the S&P 500 has been up 80% of the time since 1928,” they say.
Concerns around the Omicron variant “seemed to subside, but the rapid spread of the virus has forced the airline industry to cancel flights due to a staff shortage,” Schwab said.
For DailyFx’s Christopher Vecchio, the concomitant rise in the price of oil on Monday “gave a strong signal to the market that the Omicron variant will not have a significant impact on activity”.
The more than 2% jump in crude prices “provided a green light for other assets like stocks, the euro and the pound allowing them to recover the losses suffered earlier with the appearance of Omicron”, estimated to the analyst.
The Dow Jones is only one percentage point away from its next high.
Travel-related stocks fell sharply during the day after thousands of flight cancellations in the United States, before regaining some ground.
United Airlines finally dropped 0.65% to 44.58 dollars, Delta 0.76% to 39 dollars and American Airlines 0.49% to 18.17 dollars. During the session these titles lost more than 2%.
For their part, cruise passengers took to the water as cases of COVID-19 were identified on several ships over the weekend.
Carnival was weighted 1.18% to $ 20.95 and Norwegian Cruise dropped 2.55% to $ 22.14.
Despite the collapse of the travel sector, the eleven S&P sectors have firmly anchored themselves in the green, driven by energy (+ 2.24%), information technology (+ 2.18%) and real estate (+ 2.04%).
NASDAQ heavyweights led the rise like Apple, which is close to $ 3 trillion in capitalization (+ 2.30% to $ 180.33).
Tesla gained 2.52% to $ 1,093.84 and Facebook (Meta) gained 3.26% to $ 346.18.
Few indicators were expected this week, but the Mastercard Spending Pulse barometer showed Sunday that American consumers were spending lavishly for the holidays, a good point for activity.
Purchases (excluding autos) climbed 8.1% in a six-week period leading up to Christmas, from a year earlier, the largest increase in 17 years.
The titles of chain stores and clothing brands were all smiles like Ralph Lauren (+ 4.27%) or Macy’s (+ 2.67%).
Internet domain name specialist GoDaddy climbed 8.36% to $ 82.35 after activist US investor Starboard Value bought about 6.5% of the company.
In the bond market, yields on 10-year Treasuries eased to 1.47% from 1.49% at the previous close.