US stock futures remained mostly steady on Wednesday evening as markets were closed for Christmas. Earlier in the week, megacap stocks boosted Wall Street during a shortened trading session.
The New York Stock Exchange closed early on Tuesday for Christmas Eve and stayed shut on Christmas Day. Trading volumes are expected to remain low for the rest of the holiday-shortened week. By 7:00 PM ET (12:00 AM GMT), S&P 500 Futures were at 6,097.50 points, Nasdaq 100 Futures increased slightly to 22,060.00 points, and Dow Jones Futures held steady at 43,620.00 points.
Tech stocks continued their strong performance, with major companies in the “Magnificent 7” group seeing significant gains. Tesla Inc. surged over 7% on Tuesday, Apple Inc. rose by 1.2%, and other giants like Amazon, Meta, and Alphabet also made notable progress. Chip stocks added to their gains as the US government began investigating Chinese-made legacy chips, a move that could lead to more tariffs on Chinese semiconductors. Broadcom Inc. rose by over 3%, while Intel Corporation increased by 1%.
On Tuesday, the S&P 500 gained 1.1% to close at 6,040.04 points, the Nasdaq Composite climbed 1.4% to 20,031.13 points, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average went up 0.9% to end at 43,297.03 points.
Last week, a cautious outlook from the Federal Reserve led to declines in major indexes. The Fed stated it would wait for further progress on inflation before implementing more rate cuts, reducing expectations for cuts in 2025. However, this week saw a recovery in Wall Street as concerns eased. Softer-than-expected inflation data helped improve market sentiment, allowing major indexes to regain much of the ground lost in the previous week.
