Wall St ends close to all-time highs

Wall Street ended a light-volume post-Christmas session nearly unchanged on Friday, with few catalysts to fuel much conviction one way or the other.



All three major U.S. stock indexes closed nominally lower, snapping a five-session ⁠rally, but logged weekly gains.



Market participants watched for signs that a seasonal phenomenon called the "Santa Claus rally," in which the S&;P 500 advances through the last five trading days of the current year and the first two in the new one, a period that began on Wednesday and will ⁠run through January 5.



Such a rally would bode well for stock performance in 2026.



Just three trading days remain in a turbulent year in which tariff jitters, simmering geopolitical tensions, and the rapid growth of artificial intelligence-related momentum stocks took investors on a bumpy ride, but one in which the three major indexes, led by the tech-laden Nasdaq, are all on track to register double-digit percentage gains.



The Dow fell 20.19 points, or 0.04%, to 48,710.97, the S&;P 500 lost 2.11 points, or 0.03%, to 6,929.94 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 20.21 points, or 0.09%, to 23,593.10.