U.S. stock futures were up Tuesday morning after the S&P 500 closed at another record high in an all-around strong day for markets that jump-started the anticipated year-end bull run known to investors as the Santa Claus Rally.
Contracts on the S&P 500, Dow, and Nasdaq were up modestly ahead of the day’s trading session. The Dow and Nasdaq were each up about 70 points, while the S&P inched about 10 points higher.
For the second consecutive trading session, the S&P 500 soared past its previous peak, marking the benchmark’s 69th record close of the year along with broader market advances in the final stretch of 2021.
The moves suggest that a Santa Claus Rally — one in which stocks climb higher in the final five trading sessions of a year, plus the first two trading days of the new year — is so far underway. Over the past 92 years, the S&P 500 gained 77% of the time during the year-end rally period, according to data from Sundial Capital Research. The average gain in this seven-day trading period tallied 2.66%.
The advances come even as cases of Omicron, the latest COVID-19 variant, surged. December was a volatile month for investors who weighed the strain’s impact on the economy, but recent developments that indicate the Omicron virus is far less likely to lead to hospitalizations helped ease some earlier concerns.
“Beyond vaccines, treatment options are becoming more available,” Rik Mehta, an FDA official and Georgetown University health law professor, told Yahoo Finance Live. “That will keep people that are vaccinated and unvaccinated out of the hospitals and from developing severe infection. That’s going to be a game changer for this.”
Meanwhile, travel stocks were a dark spot in the earlier session’s rally. Shares of U.S. airline companies took a hit following news of more than 2,800 canceled flights over the Christmas weekend and into Monday. Disruptions and delays were the result of staffing shortages caused by an uptick of COVID-19 cases among crews and personnel.
American Airlines (AAL) closed down 0.49% to $18.17 per share, United Airlines (UAL) traded 0.65% lower at $44.58 per share, and Delta Air Lines (DAL) slipped 0.76% to $39.00 per share.
“If the stocks are down, now is the time to buy,” DLB Financial Services CEO Debbie Boyd told Yahoo Finance Live as she discussed airline companies. “Think of those stocks being down as on sale.”
The rest of the week is expected to be mostly quiet for investors, with trading volumes low and a light calendar of economic data and earnings releases.
“We’re going to have a very strong January,” Navellier & Associates founder and CIO Louis Navellier told Yahoo Finance Live. “If we can rally on light volume, we’re going to get an explosion to the upside when the volume increases in January.”
The market will head into 2022 with several key considerations to weigh but with its biggest focus on the course of the pandemic and rising inflationary pressures, as well as on measures the Federal Reserve could take in response.
“Inflation and Omicron are the two most important catalysts for the stock market right now,” APAC CEO at Qraft Technologies Francis Oh told Yahoo Finance. “I think that those catalysts are priced in through the market volatility… still I think the market will cautiously move off.”
9:00 a.m. ET: Home price growth continues to slow
U.S. home price appreciation has eased slightly, according to a fresh read on the Standard & Poor’s S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller national home price index.
The agency reported Tuesday morning that the index posted a 19.1% annual gain in October, down from 19.7% from September. The 20-City Composite posted a 18.4% annual gain, down from 19.1% a month earlier. Results came close to Bloomberg consensus estimates of an 18.5% annual gain.
Still, home prices continue to appreciate at double-digit rates — two-to three-times faster than a year ago — across all metropolitan areas, CoreLogic Deputy Chief Economist Selma Hepp said in a statement prior to the results.
“Unfortunately, the rate of home price growth will be limiting for many young buyers who have yet to accumulate sufficient equity gains, and an expected increase in mortgage rates next year will present further challenges,” she said. “Together, these two factors will keep a lid on continued home price acceleration.”
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7:00 a.m. ET: Contracts on the Dow, S&P, and Nasdaq tick up
Here’s how markets were trading ahead of open ET:
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S&P 500 futures (ES=F): +9.50 points (+0.20%), to 4,791.75
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Dow futures (YM=F): +70.00 points (+0.19%), to 36,248.00
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Nasdaq futures (NQ=F): +70.75 points (+0.43%) to 16,630
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Crude (CL=F): +$1.09 (1.44%) to $76.66 a barrel
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Gold (GC=F): +$10.30 (+0.57%) to $1,819.00 per ounce
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10-year Treasury (^TNX): +0.00bps to yield 0.00%
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6:00 p.m. Monday ET: Futures unchanged following rally
Here’s how U.S. stock futures fared heading into the overnight session ET:
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S&P 500 futures (ES=F): -0.75 points (-0.02%), to 4,781.50
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Dow futures (YM=F): -7 points (-0.02%), to 36,171
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Nasdaq futures (NQ=F): +9 points (+0.05%) to 16,569
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Crude (CL=F): +$0.42 (0.56%) to $75.99 a barrel
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Gold (GC=F): +$3.90 (+0.22%) to $1,812.70 per ounce
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10-year Treasury (^TNX): +0.03bps to yield 0.02%
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Alexandra Semenova is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @alexandraandnyc
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