Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange on Dec. 10, 2024.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Stock futures were mixed early Monday as the market gears up for a holiday-shortened trading week.
Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost about 78 points. S&P 500 futures rose 0.8% and Nasdaq 100 futures climbed 0.4%.
Trading is expected to be relatively muted during the week. The New York Stock Exchange closes early Tuesday for Christmas Eve at 1 p.m. ET, and the market is shut on Christmas Day.
Investors are hopeful that a so-called Santa Claus rally may help the market end 2024 on a high note, especially following a tumultuous week. Dating back to 1969, the S&P 500, on average, added 1.3% in the last five trading days of the year and the first two in January, according to the Stock Trader’s Almanac.
The second half of December is also typically the second-strongest period of the year for U.S. equities, and the S&P 500 has been up 83% of the time in December of presidential election years, according to Bank of America.
“With the market’s primary uptrends still intact, we are not giving up on the potential for a Santa Claus to come to Broad & Wall this year,” Craig Johnson, chief market technician at Piper Sandler, said in a note.
The market is coming off a rollercoaster ride that saw the blue-chip Dow suffer a 10-day losing streak, its longest since 1974. The Dow tumbled 1,100 points last Wednesday after the Federal Reserve signaled fewer rate cuts for 2025 than previously projected. A cooler-than-expected inflation reading helped stocks recoup some of the losses.
Month-to-date, the 30-stock Dow is down 4.6% in December, while the S&P 500 is off 1.7%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite bucked the downtrend, rising 1.8% this month.
On the politics front, President Joe Biden signed a government funding bill on Saturday that averted a government shutdown. The bill funds federal agencies at current levels for the next three months.
