Thursday, December 19, 2024

The stock market gave a rebound the old college try today, but aside from a modest +15 points on the blue-chip Dow, indexes closed in the red again today. Results were nowhere near as bad as they were yesterday, but the S&P 500 slipped -5 points (-0.09%), the Nasdaq -19 points (-0.10%) and the small-cap Russell 2000 -10 points (-0.45%).

For the Dow, it breaks a 10-session losing streak off all-time highs at the start of this month, including its worst single-trading day since the dawning of the Covid era. The Dow remains +12% year to date. Overall, we can call today’s trading session “flat.”

Part of the consternation in today’s market came from Washington DC, where fears that the debt ceiling would not get raised ahead of the second term of President-elect Trump, and that Elon Musk — enjoying an unprecedented level of influence over the incoming White House — was in favor of letting the government shutdown rather than pass a major spending bill.

Those concerns are somewhat alleviated at this hour, with President-elect Trump now giving his blessing on raising the debt ceiling for another two years and passing the major spending bill forthcoming. This may not be what deficit hawks wanted to see from Trump, but at least he doesn’t start a new term hamstrung by budgetary questions right out of the gate.

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