· The S&P 500 and the Dow industrials slipped in a shortened, pre-Christmas session on Tuesday, as investors paused after a record-setting rally fueled by improving U.S.-China trade relations that has put the market on course for its best year since 2013.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 36.08 points, or 0.13%, to 28,515.45, the S&P 500 lost 0.63 point, or 0.02%, to 3,223.38 and the Nasdaq Composite added 7.24 points, or 0.08%, to 8,952.88.
Industrials lagged the most among S&P 500 sectors, while real estate was the top gainer.
Volumes are expected to be thin this week as traders settle in for the holidays. The main U.S. stock exchanges closed at 1 p.m. ET on Tuesday and remain shut on Wednesday.
· As investors celebrate the outsized gains they made in the stock market in 2019, they may be getting ready to sell some of their winners once 2020 begins.
There’s little to stand in the way of the rising stock market at this point as it drifts, higher, for the most part, into year-end. But come January, analysts say, there should be some tax-related selling, and the broader market may even pull back, after its heady 2019 gains.
“I think people won’t want to add any more taxable gains this year, so they’ll probably defer to next year. They made a lot of money. A lot of them will tend to look at rebalancing,” said James Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Leuthold Group.
Even if there’s a January pullback, analysts expect the stock market to keep rising.
The S&P 500 has gained 8.3% in the final quarter of the year and was up 28.6% for the year so far, its best performance since 2013. If the S&P gains more than 29.6% for the year, that would be the biggest gain since1997′s 31% gain.
Reference: CNBC, Reuters
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