Stocks shook off Tuesday's declines and rose Wednesday, bringing the Dow to a fresh closing high for one of the final trading sessions of 2020. Trading volume amid the shortened holiday week have been relatively low and with positive catalysts like AstraZeneca's (NASDAQ: AZN) coronavirus vaccine being approved for emergency use in the United Kingdom and the passage of the $900 billion U.S. economic stimulus bill, investors are betting on a strong growth year for 2021.
Currently, the Senate has no plans to vote on a bill passed earlier this week by the House of Representatives to raise the amount given in stimulus direct payments to $2,000 from $600. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced that the $600 direct payments started to be sent out on Tuesday.
Here's how the market settled on Wednesday:
S&P 500 Index (NYSE: SPY): +0.13% or +5.00 points to 3,732.04
Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSE: DIA): +0.24% or +73.89 points to 30,409.56
Nasdaq Composite Index (NASDAQ: QQQ): +0.15% or +19.78 points to 12,870.00
For Stocks, after months of a very public dispute following the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, Tiffany (NYSE: TIF) shareholders have finally agreed to a $15 billion acquisition deal from LVMH (OTC: LVMUY). Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) announced it will be acquiring the podcast producer Wondery for an undisclosed amount. Amazon seeks to expand its podcast content on its Amazon Music offering to better compete with Spotify (NYSE: SPOT).
For Sector Performance, sectors on the S&P mostly remained in positive territory on Wednesday, with Energy (NYSE: XLE) and Materials (NYSE: XLB) leading gains at over 1%. The session's only losers were Information Technology (NYSE: XLK), Consumer Staples (NYSE: XLY) and Communication Services (NYSE: XLC), all of which only slipped slightly into negative territory.
For Commodities and Currencies, the U.S. Dollar (NYSE: UUP) fell lower on Wednesday as risk sentiment increased moving into the new year following the passage of additional U.S. stimulus. The dollar index, which tracks the greenback against other rival currencies, fell 0.39% to 89.65. Bitcoin, the world's most popular cryptocurrency, soared to a new record high of $28,917 on Wednesday. Gold (NYSE: GLD) prices were supported by the weaker dollar, with market participants using the bullion as an inflation hedge, but risk appetite moving into the new year from vaccine rollouts limited its gains. Spot gold rose 0.8% to $1,892.06 per ounce, while gold futures settled 0.2% higher at $1,887.40 per ounce. Crude oil futures rose on Wednesday demand outlooks remained positive looking towards the new year. International benchmark Brent Crude (NYSE: BNO) climbed 0.49% to $51.34 per barrel, while domestic benchmark West Texas Intermediate (NYSE: USO) increased 0.83% to settle at $48.40 each.
For Thursday, investors will turn their attention to fresh weekly jobless data from the Labor Department as well as more progress towards additional stimulus heading into 2021.