SPX: S&P 500 Reverses Course to Wipe Out 1% Intraday Gain, Slides Under Flatline

Investors tried but failed to shrug off stocks’ end-of-year slump as the broad-based index couldn’t hold on to early-session gains.

• The S&P 500 index slipped on its first trading day of the new year despite lots of effort from investors who bumped it up initially. The broad-based blue-chip index advanced roughly 1% during the session but all that gain fizzled out by closing time and now the ugly slump to wrap up 2024 got extended into the first moments of 2025. The S&P 500 wiped out about 0.2% but it wasn’t the only victim of early-year selling.
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average waved away a 300-point increase to log a 150-point loss while the Nasdaq Composite was more composed in its slide, erasing just 0.1% from its valuation. To those looking to zoom in, several players can be singled out as the culprits. Tesla stock TSLA plunged 6% after the company’s quarterly deliveries report showed growth stalled. Apple shares AAPL tanked nearly 3% on some bad press from UBS.
• Few words on the economy (yes, this economy), last week’s US jobless claims released Thursday dropped to an eight-month low of 211,000. That’s the number of laid off Americans filing for unemployment benefits. Analysts had forecast 222,000 claims for the week. On Friday, markets will be eyeing December’s manufacturing PMI data for clues into the pace of business activity in the US. Analysts expect a flat report on a monthly basis.