© Reuters. A Christmas tree is pictured outside the New York Stock Exchange
By Devik Jain and Supriya R
(Reuters) – U.S. stocks rose on Wednesday, led by energy stocks, with investors betting on a strong economic recovery in 2021 due to the launch of the COVID-19 vaccine and hopes for greater fiscal support.
The last few weeks of the year saw a shift towards undervalued stocks that are expected to benefit from an economic recovery next year, with sectors such as banks, energy and materials surpassing their peers.
Major technology stocks, the most sought after this year, were sold in the race for cyclicals.
Still, short-term expectations for greater stimulus checks faded after Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell blocked a quick vote to support President Donald Trump’s call to increase COVID-19 relief checks.
“We are having a bit of a hangover after the stimulus package was approved on Monday,” said Kim Forrest, chief investment officer at Bokeh Capital Partners in Pittsburgh.
“It is a little bit silenced because the additional $ 2,000 package appears to still exist, but it has now been eliminated by the Senate.”
Turnover has been moderate and is expected to be low in the last two days of the year, which has been a roller coaster for stocks.
The market is on the verge of an annual gain of almost 16%, after trillions of dollars in stimulus and progress in vaccine development helped the benchmark rebound by more than 70% from its low in late March.
The high-tech Nasdaq, which was the first among the top Wall Street indices to turn positive for the year, is also expected to perform at its best annual performance since 2009, with the majority of earnings led by shares of FAANG – Apple Inc (NASDAQ: ), Facebook Inc (NASDAQ :), Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ :), Netflix Inc (NASDAQ 🙂 and Alphabet (NASDAQ 🙂 Inc.
At 12:21 pm ET, it rose 164.52 points, or 0.54%, at 30,500.19, the S&P 500 rose 11.99 points, or 0.32%, at 3,739.03, and it rose 41.11 points, or 0.32%, in 12,891.34.
Ten of the top 11 S&P 500 subsectors rose, with energy, materials and industry earning more.
By increasing risk appetite around the world, Britain has approved the emergency use of AstraZeneca (NASDAQ 🙂 and the University of Oxford’s COVID-19 vaccine, which will begin to be administered on Monday.
Meanwhile, the first known case in the United States of a highly infectious coronavirus variant discovered in Britain was detected in Colorado.
Shares in payment network controller Mastercard Inc (NYSE 🙂 were up 2.5% after Stephens raised its target stock price in hopes of improving international sentiment.
Travel-related inventories in the U.S. have increased as stimulus aid and the start of mass inoculations have sparked hopes of a recovery for the industry that has been among those hardest hit by the restrictions fueled by the pandemic.
The S&P 1500 airlines index increased 1.1%, while cruise operators Norwegian Cruise Line (NYSE 🙂 Holdings Ltd, Carnival (NYSE 🙂 Corp and Royal Caribbean (NYSE 🙂 Cruises Ltd was up between 1.5% and 2.3%.
Early issues outnumbered declining rates by 2.95 to 1 on the NYSE and 2.48 to 1 on Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded 21 new highs of 52 weeks and a new low, while the Nasdaq recorded 107 new highs and 23 new lows.