Wall Street closes higher and S&P 500 and Dow Jones break records on Christmas Eve

The New York stock exchanges ended the session this Wednesday, 24th, on a high and with a new closing record for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones, in a session marked by low liquidity due to Christmas Eve.

The Dow Jones rose 0.60%, to 48,731.16 points and the S&P 500 increased 0.32%, to 6,932.05 points, both renewing their closing high. The Nasdaq rose 0.22%, to 23,613.31 points.

According to AJ Bell, investors remain attentive to signs of weakening in the job market, given that the reading of the American Gross Domestic Product (GDP) only showed “where the economy was, and not where it is headed”, leaving more questions to be answered in 2026. In the morning, the US Department of Labor reported that unemployment benefit claims in the US fell to 214 thousand last week, below what analysts expected.

Limiting the Nasdaq’s gains, Intel’s share fell 0.55%, after Nvidia (-0.32%) stopped manufacturing chips with the company’s 18A model, according to information from Reuters. Employees and market experts also raise doubts about the company’s ability to regain leadership in semiconductors. In parallel, other peers in the sector such as Micron (+3.77%) and Broadcom (+0.26%) rose.

Nike rose nearly 5% after Apple CEO Tim Cook bought 50,000 shares of the shoe maker, while UiPath jumped 7.46% amid the announcement that it will join the S&P MidCap 400 starting January 2.

In the health sector, Dynavax Technologies accelerated an increase of 38 19% with information that Sanofi purchased the vaccine specialist for US$ 2.2 billion, seeking to strengthen the French pharmaceutical company’s immunization portfolio after suffering setbacks in clinical trials.

Due to the Christmas holiday, the stock market will be closed in the US tomorrow.