Traders are working on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
NYSE
US futures opened along the flat line on Sunday night before the first session of 2021, after a volatile year of trading.
Dow Jones Industrial Media futures fell just 37 points, or 0.1%. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures fell marginally.
Both the Dow and the S&P 500 closed at record highs on Thursday, the last trading day in 2020, to end a year of surprisingly strong gains.
The 30-share Dow ended last year with an advance of 7.3%, and the S&P 500 rose 16.3% at that time. At some point in 2020, the two market benchmarks fell by more than 30% as the coronavirus pandemic devastated the global economy.
The highlight of 2020 was the Nasdaq Composite, which rose 43.6% to its biggest one-year gain since 2009. Nasdaq’s top performance came as investors and traders rallied technology in the Covid focus. 19.
Unprecedented fiscal and monetary support for the economy – along with the development and launch of several Covid-19 vaccines – has helped the market recover from the massive decline to return to all-time highs.
“The stock market is positioned for further gains in 2021 based on the two pillars of fiscal and monetary policy coordinated by the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve Board and a successful launch of the COVID vaccine,” wrote Marc Chaikin, CEO of Chaikin Analytics. “However, we imagine some unevenness on the road.”
The launch of several Covid-19 vaccines in the United States has recently been slowed due to supply constraints.
Moncef Slaoui, head of Operation Warp Speed, said on Sunday that the US could increase the launch of the vaccine by offering a group of Americans half a dose of the drug developed by Moderna. “We know that for the Moderna vaccine, administering half the dose to people between the ages of 18 and 55 … induces an identical immune response at a dose of 100 micrograms,” Slaoui said.
The number of coronavirus cases continues to rise in the United States as well, raising concerns about the speed of the economic recovery in 2021. Data compiled by Johns Hopkins University showed that more than 20 million Covid-19 infections were confirmed in the United States, along with more than 1.8 million virus-related deaths. Several cases of the new coronavirus strain have also been confirmed across the country.
Wall Street is also watching Georgia as the state prepares for Senate elections on Tuesday, which could give Democrats a majority in the chamber.
“With Tuesday’s election in Georgia and the drama of Wednesday’s polling stations, expect two-way trading this week and a recovery in short-term volatility,” Chaikin added.
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