NEW YORK: Wall Street stocks headed lower on Thursday and US benchmark Treasury yields scaled the highest level since April in light, post-Christmas trading.

The modest but broad-based sell-off pulled all three major US stock indexes modestly lower despite the so-called Santa Claus rally, in which stocks often get a holiday season boost from low liquidity, tax loss harvesting and investment of year-end bonuses.

“It’s light volume and now we are recovering some earlier losses due to some profit taking from Tuesday’s rally,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New York.

“I think we’re in the Santa Claus rally, with a little bit of a bump in the road here today, and it’s probably safe to say the year-end rally will continue.”

With only a handful of trading days remaining in the year, the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and the Dow have scored respective gains of 33pc, 26pc and 14pc in 2024.

The major concerns for 2025 are the extent of the Federal Reserve’s monetary easing, Trump’s tariffs and other policies, and various geopolitical tensions.

On the economic front, new claims for unemployment benefits came in slightly below analysts’ estimates, while ongoing claims jumped to their largest number since November 2021, suggesting laid off workers are having increasing difficulty finding new jobs.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 28.97 points, or 0.07pc, to 43,268.06, the S&P 500 slid 4.50 points, or 0.07pc, to 6,035.54 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 18.10 points, or 0.09pc, to 20,013.03.

Published in Dawn, December 27th, 2024