2025-12-18 15:40:00
Santa Claus may have finally arrived at the New York Stock Exchange.
Shares are surging today after a four-day slump. The S&P 500 is up 87 points, or 1.3% while the Nasdaq is up 1.9%.
The S&P 500 has nearly wiped out yesterday’s harsh selloff.
SPX daily
The rally has been helped along by a soft US inflation report. The numbers were likely skewed lower by the US government shutdown and data collection issues but the market is taking it generally at face value. Year-over-year inflation fell to 2.6% from 3.0% and that could prompt some Fed officials to push harder for rate cuts int he new year. The market has nearly fully priced in a cut in April or sooner.
The big winner on the day is Micron, which is up 11% after smashing revenue estimates in earnings released late yesterday. The AI energy plays are also near the top of the leaderboard with GE Vernova, Constellation Energy and Vistra all up more than 5%
Another winner is Lululemon, which replaced its CEO this week. Starbucks is also strong as consumer spending showed and uptick in Darden’s quarterly report.
On the downside, Service Now and Lennar continue to struggle after heavy selloffs yesterday.
In terms of megacap tech, they’re all rallying:
- NVDA +3%
- META +3%
- AMZN +3.1%
- TSLA +3.9%
- MSFT +2.0%
- GOOG +1.9%
- AAPL +0.1%
