S&P 500 closes little changed Thursday, struggles to reach record: Live updates

The S&P 500 finished marginally higher Thursday, closing in on a new all-time high in the penultimate trading day or what’s been a strong year for stocks.

The broad market index added 0.04% to finish at 4,783.35, putting it within striking distance of its highest closing level set in January 2022 at 4,796.56. The Dow Jones Industrial Average roe 53.58 points, or 0.14%, to end at 37,710.10 and hit a fresh closing high. The Nasdaq Composite inched down 0.03% to close at 15,095.14.

“What we’re seeing now is the market exhibit extreme resilience,” despite some technical indicators suggesting overbought conditions, said Adam Sarhan, CEO of 50 Park Investments. “We have every chance in the world for the market to fall and it refuses to fall in a meaningful fashion. That tells me that the bulls remain in clear control.”

With two trading sessions left in 2023, all major averages are on pace to wrap up the year with gains. The blue-chip Dow and the S&P 500 are poised to finish higher by nearly 13.8% and 24.6%, respectively.

Meanwhile, the technology-heavy Nasdaq is on track for its best year since 2003, climbing 44.2%. That outperformance has been driven by the artificial intelligence craze and a rebound among mega-cap tech names after 2022’s carnage.

The three major indexes are also all slated to notch their ninth straight winning weeks. That underscores the market’s late 2023 rally, rebounding off a negative third quarter. The S&P is up 11.6% for the quarter and headed for its best quarterly performance in three years.

Stocks are now in the middle of a period dubbed the “Santa Claus rally,” which refers to the last five trading days of an ending year and the first two of a new one. The S&P 500 has risen about 1.3% over this timeframe on average, per data going back to 1950 from the Stock Trader’s Almanac.

As 2023 comes to a close, expanding breadth and bullish technical patterns forming across the major indexes create the “perfect storm” for stocks in 2024 as markets look ahead to rate cuts and the continued easing in inflation, said 50 Park’s Sarhan.

“The big risk now is a recession,” he said. “We didn’t have the reset everybody coming into this year was expecting.”