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U.S. stocks were little-changed in their final trading day before the holidays Friday morning, and while indexes remained on track for a positive week, the “Santa rally” that has taken indexes to repeated records appeared to stall with few catalysts to spur buying.
The Dow once again appeared unlikely to pierce the closely watched milestone of 20,000, but the blue-chip index is nevertheless set to log its seventh consecutive weekly gain. That streak would match its longest weekly run since the period between Oct. 4, 2014 and the first week of December 2014, according to FactSet data.
The market has been in rally mode since the U.S. election, with investors betting that President-elect Donald Trump will advocate for policies — including massive corporate tax cuts and deregulation — that will accelerate growth. The S&P 500 has spiked more than 5% since the election, while the Dow has risen more than 8%.
See: The Dow Jones Industrial Average is the best active fund ever engineered
“The word of the day is ‘holiday,’ which has been settling in as a theme all week,” said Frank Davis, head of sales and trading at LEK Securities in New York. “There has been a slowdown in trading volume and a slowdown in volatility, and we’ve also had a pretty good move since the election, so we’re digesting that move, which is healthy.”
Trading volume has been light this week, with some market participants already out for the Christmas holiday. Markets are closed Monday.
As of roughly 10 a.m. ET, fewer than 300 million shares traded on U.S. exchanges, according to data from Bats Global Market. That puts trading on track to be notably below average. Thus far this month, about 4 billion shares have exchanged hands a day.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.03% slipped 7 points, or less than 0.1%, to 19,909, while the S&P 500 SPX, +0.00% edged 0.3 point higher at 2,261 and the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +0.07% rose 2 points to 5,447. All three indexes were less than 0.1% from their Thursday closes.
For the week, the Dow is up 0.4%, the S&P is up 0.1% and the Nasdaq has gained 0.2%.
Read: Why Dow 20,000 isn’t a foregone conclusion in 2016
Health care stocks were the strongest performers of the day, up 0.3%, while material stocks were the biggest drags, falling by that same amount.
Bank stocks KBE, -0.18% were in focus after the U.S. Justice Department reached separate settlements with German lender Deutsche Bank DB, +0.11% DBK, -0.32% and Swiss lender Credit Suisse CS, -0.87% CSGN, -0.91% related to the sale the mortgage-backed securities. Deutsche Bank’s settlement of $7.2 billion was less than the $14 billion authorities initially sought.
The settlements “should allow a line to be drawn under stateside crisis-era legal issues, although note a rather more stubborn Barclays [is] refusing to settle for anything more than $1 billion to $2 billion,” said Accendo Markets analysts Mike van Dulken and Henry Croft in a Friday note.
Also: Why Dow 20K is the mark of an underachieving market
In the latest economic data, new home sales rose 5.2% in November, advancing to their second-highest pace since early 2008. Separately, the final December reading on consumer sentiment rose, the latest sign of postelection optimism.
Check out MarketWatch’s Economic Calendar.
Corporates: Aerie Pharmaceuticals Inc. AERI, +1.88% fell 2.8% after the pharmaceutical company said the manufacturing line related to its glaucoma treatment Rhopressa won't be ready in time for inspection by the Food and Drug Administration.
Uniform and office maintenance supply company Cintas Corp. CTAS, -3.61% late Thursday forecast fiscal 2017 earnings of $4.57 to $4.65 a share on revenue of $5.18 billion to $5.23 billion. Analysts expect $4.61 a share on revenue of $5.22 billion. The stock fell 2.9%.
Prestige Brands Holdings Inc. PBH, +4.90% said late Thursday it plans to buy privately held C.B. Fleet Co. for $825 million. Fleet is known for its line of over-the-counter enemas and laxatives, as well as its Summers Eve line of feminine hygiene products. Shares of Prestige rose 2.8%.
Other markets: European stocks SXXP, +0.04% were circling the flatline, but Deutsche Bank shares pushed higher in Frankfurt following its Justice Department settlement. Asian stocks slipped, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index HSI, -0.28% off 0.3%.
Oil futures CLG7, -0.19% were off 0.7% and gold futures GCG7, +0.31% were slightly higher. The U.S. ICE Dollar Index DXY, -0.09% was up 0.1%.
