[[[[[ Santa Claus was pretty much a no-show on Wall Street.
As defined by the Stock Trader’s Almanac, the “Santa Claus rally” refers to the S&P 500’s tendency to rise during the last five trading days of a calendar year and the first two trading sessions of the new year …
… But this time around, the Santa rally period, which ran from Dec. 22 through Wednesday, Jan. 3, saw the S&P 500 fall 0.9%. That was the worst performance for a Santa-rally period since 2015-2016, snapping a streak of seven positive Santa stretches, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
The Nasdaq Composite COMP also dropped over that time span, down 2.5% since Dec. 22 to book its third consecutive negative Santa rally period.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA eked out a modest gain of less than 0.1% over the same period, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
A failure to rally in that stretch is seen by some market analysts as a signal for more rough sledding ahead.
“Years when there was no ‘Santa Claus rally’ tended to precede bear markets or times when stocks hit significantly lower prices later in the year,” wrote Jeff Hirsch, editor of the Stock Trader’s Almanac & Almanac Investor Newsletter. ]]]]]
