Friday, December 27, 2013??????
(This is Mark Vickery covering for Sheraz Mian for the final few days of 2013.)
"Santa Claus rallies" are nothing new, but this year the old guy simply outdid himself. Another record close for both the Dow and S&P 500 on Thursday followed improved jobless claims, as well as earlier reports of improved holiday sales year over year and Durable Goods numbers considerably stronger than expectations. "Ho ho ho," indeed!
Both the Dow and S&P are having their best 2-week periods since this past summer. The Dow, up 122 points in regular Thursday trading, posted its sixth consecutive record closing high. The S&P is on track for its biggest trading year since before Monica Lewinsky was making headlines. The Nasdaq is up 38% for the year, and Twitter (TWTR) is up 76% in December alone (though Twitter has received a downgrade just this morning).
And with the "Great Rotation" expected to continue into 2014 accompanying strengthening economic data, investors, traders and economists for the most part expect the party to continue into the new year. Check out "The 'Great Rotation' Could Send These Stocks Soaring" by Todd Bunton.
Amazon (AMZN) put out a dazzling report this morning, in which the company says 1 million people signed up for Amazon Prime in the third week of December. It also says 36.8 million items were sold on Cyber Monday — that's 426 items every second! — and more than half its users made purchases on mobile devices. Also, Textron (TXT) is buying Beechcraft Corp. for $1.4 billion.
Mark Vickery
Senior Editor
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