'Santa Claus Rally' Is On Track

Stocks closed higher on Wall Street in a shortened trading day ahead of the Christmas holiday, led by gains in Big Tech stocks.

• The S&P 500 rose 65.97 points, or 1.1%, to 6,040.04.
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 390.08 points, or 0.9%, to 43,297.03.
• The Nasdaq composite rose 266.24 points, or 1.3%, to 20,031.13.

American Airlines shook off an early loss and ended 0.6% higher after the airline briefly grounded flights nationwide due to a technical issue.

Chip company Broadcom rose 3.2%, while semiconductor giant Nvidia, whose enormous valuation gives it an outsize influence on indexes, rose 0.4%. Super Micro Computer jumped 6%. Tesla climbed 7.4%, one of the biggest gains among S&P 500 stocks. Amazon.com rose 1.8%. US Steel rose 1.9% a day after an influential government panel failed to reach consensus on the possible national security risks of the nearly $15 billion proposed sale to Nippon Steel of Japan. NeueHealth surged 90.9% after the health care company agreed to be taken private in a deal valued at roughly $1.3 billion.

Tuesday's rally comes as the stock market enters what's historically been a very cheerful season. The last five trading days of each year, plus the first two in the new year, have brought an average gain of 1.3% since 1950. The so-called "Santa rally" also correlates closely with positive returns in January and the upcoming year.

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So far this month, the US stock market has lost some of its gains since President-elect Trump's election win, which raised hopes for faster economic growth and more lax regulations that would boost corporate profits. Worries have risen that Trump's preference for tariffs and other policies could lead to higher inflation, a bigger US government debt, and difficulties for global trade, the AP reports. Even so, the stock market remains on pace to deliver strong returns for 2024. The benchmark S&P 500 is up about 26% so far this year and remains within roughly 1.3% of the all-time high it set earlier this month—its latest of 57 record highs this year.

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