Dow Inched Up, Bitcoin Slides as Post-Christmas Rally Slows Down

Image Credit: Yahoo!Finance

U.S. stocks struggled to extend their "Santa Claus" rally after Christmas, with Wall Street analyzing one of the few significant economic reports of the week.

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) ended slightly lower, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq (^IXIC) posted a modest decline. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) closed up by 28 points after fluctuating between positive and negative throughout the light trading session.

Small-cap stocks saw a slight gain, with the Russell 2000 (^RUT) rising by 0.9%.

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) dipped to around the $96,000 level as volatile trading continued, with crypto-linked stocks like MicroStrategy (MSTR) following suit. 

Markets began the "Santa Claus" rally on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 marking its best Christmas Eve performance since 1974, according to Bespoke. The broader index and Nasdaq Composite moved closer to their record highs after recovering from a Fed-driven downturn last week.

As Wall Street returned from the holiday break, the usual weekly jobless claims report garnered extra attention, serving as the only notable jobs data for the week. 

According to the latest Labor Department figures, weekly jobless claims dropped to 219,000, below the expected 223,000. However, continuing claims increased by 46,000, rising to 1.91 million in the week ending Dec. 14, the highest level since November 2021, signaling a potential softening in the labor market.

Paraphrasing text from "Yahoo!Finance" all rights reserved by the original author.