Traders works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange on Dec. 2, 2024.
Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters
The S&P 500 ticked higher to a new record to begin December trading as investors looked for stocks to add to big November gains.
The S&P 500 added 0.3%, touching a new intraday record. The Nasdaq Composite added 1%, also reaching a new intraday high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.1% after briefly trading above 45,000. The blue-chip index had previously touched the milestone a few times last week.
Shares of Tesla gained 3% following an upgrade to buy from neutral at Roth MKM, with the firm citing as a catalyst Musk's close relationship with President-elect Donald Trump. AI server maker Super Micro Computer surged 29% after a special committee found "no evidence of misconduct" and that the firm's financial statements were "materially accurate." Meanwhile, Amazon stock added 1% amid the start of the holiday shopping season on Cyber Monday.
November marked the best month of 2024 for both the Dow and S&P 500, with the two gaining 7.5% and 5.7% respectively for the period. Most of the gains came in a postelection rally after President-elect Donald Trump emerged as the winner. Both of the indexes notched closing highs in Friday's shortened trading session.
S&P 500, YTD
Small-cap stocks were also a winner in November as investors saw the group benefiting from Trump's potential tax cuts. The Russell 2000 surged more than 10% in the month, also notching its biggest monthly gain of the year.
December is traditionally a good month for stocks, but Jay Hatfield, founder and CEO of InfraCap, only sees the market range-bound into the end of 2024.
"I think we'll grind higher, but not rocket higher," he told CNBC, citing 6,200 as a potential year-end estimate for the S&P 500. This is less than 3% above where the benchmark closed on Friday. "I think we've priced in the upside from the new, pro-business administration, and now we need to get details — not just tweets — but details of what the policy is."
On Monday morning, freshly released economic data indicated that the U.S. manufacturing sector improved in November, although it still remained in contraction. That came ahead of the November jobs report, due out on Friday morning.
