S&P 500 hits record high on Christmas Eve for first time in more than a decade

By Vivien Lou Chen and Joseph Adinolfi

Investors have plenty to be happy about this Christmas as stocks, gold and silver trade in record territory

The S&P 500 has delivered a gift of its own for investors this holiday season.

Stocks and metals prices marched further into record territory on Wednesday, giving investors a little something extra to celebrate this Christmas.

The S&P 500 SPX tallied a fresh record closing high on Wednesday - its first during an abbreviated Christmas Eve trading session since 2013, Dow Jones Market Data showed. The index finished at 6,932.05, FactSet data showed. It also managed to hit a record intraday high during the session, its first on Christmas Eve since 2014.

Silver and gold, meanwhile, hit fresh intraday records earlier in the session. The most active gold futures (GC00) traded as high as $4,555.10 an ounce, while the most active silver futures (SI00) traded as high as $72.75, Dow Jones Market Data showed - though both metals were trading below those levels by the time the stock market closed at 1 p.m. Eastern Time.

Stocks have shaken off a bout of weakness that culminated with the April tariff tantrum to charge higher in 2025, with the S&P 500 on track to tally a third straight year of double-digit gains. Heading into 2026, investors appear to be focused on signs that the U.S. economy could be picking up again, despite a tepid labor market that has helped stoke fears about the strength of the consumer.

"It's been a good year," said Thomas Martin, senior portfolio manager at Globalt Investments in Atlanta. "There was a fair amount of uncertainty coming into it. Then with Liberation Day, it looked like it could be pretty bad. But the economy and the consumer held up much better than people expected and earnings growth for the S&P 500 was also better than expected. That's why we are here."

Performance for U.S. stocks was pretty broad on Wednesday, with 10 of the 11 S&P 500 sectors finishing higher, according to FactSet. Only the energy sector ended the day lower.

After moving higher with nary an interruption for most of the spring and summer - other than President Trump's "liberation day" tariff announcement - stocks hit some turbulence in November as the artificial-intelligence trade came under pressure, causing the Nasdaq Composite COMP to snap a seven-month winning streak.

But lately, releases of economic data delayed by the government shutdown have helped to reinforce expectations that the U.S. economy in 2026 will land right in investors' sweet spot. That has helped push stocks higher over the past couple of weeks.

"The economic data that has been released in the last few weeks has been somewhat mixed, enabling investors to remain confident that the Fed will continue to ease into 2026," said Gina Martin Adams, chief market strategist at Atlanta-based HB Wealth, which manages more than $29 billion in assets.

"It is not so weak to worry about recession and not so hot to worry about the Fed having to tighten or stop the easing that began in the fall of 2025," Adams said. In addition, oil (CL00) trading below $60 a barrel "has been positive for stocks, mainly because it generally means it won't become a constraint on consumer spending."

"All of those factors have pushed stocks to new highs over the course of the last few weeks," she said via phone.

The Nasdaq, the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA and the Russell 2000 RUT all ended higher Wednesday as well, though all three indexes were trading below record peaks reached over the past few months.

Meanwhile, the Cboe Volatility Index VIX, better known as the VIX or Wall Street's "fear gauge," finished below 14 for the first time since Dec. 13, 2024, Dow Jones Market Data showed.

-Vivien Lou Chen -Joseph Adinolfi

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

12-24-25 1314ET