It was a record setting day across the board yesterday, helped in large part to a fabulous holiday spending report.  The Nasdaq crossed the 9,000 mark for the first time, and it did not look back. Not only that, this is longest winning streak in over a decade for the Nasdaq.   Nasdaq is up 4.2% for the month and is up 36% year to date, thanks to names like Apple (AAPL), which is up 8.5% this month, and the semiconductors. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index is up 8.6% so far in December.

The President not only noticed, but tweeted:

 “Trump stock market us far outpacing US presidents.”  

And he is correct. The S&P 500 is up from than 50% since he took office, trumping (pun intended) the average 23% return of presidents in their third year.  The S&P only needs 10 points to have its best annual performance since 1997, and it is up 3.2% this month alone, and 29.2% year to date. 

NYSE

• Advancers 1791
• Decliners 1121
• New Highs 17
• Volume 7

NASDAQ

• Advancers 1739
• Decliners 1432
• New Highs 215
• Volume 27

Consumer Discretionary was the big winner yesterday, with Communication Services and Technology basically in second.  Money continued to flow into big names such as Apple (AAPL) +2% and Amazon (AMZN) +4.5%.  Amazon had its best day since January. 

All the sectors in the S&P 500 are up this month, except for Real Estate, which is down fractionally (-0.1%).  The standouts include Energy +6%, Information Technology +4.6%, and Healthcare +3.8%.

Looks like the streaming space is heating up, as Comcast (CMCSA) is allegedly in talks to buy Xumo, a video-streaming company. 

There isn’t much economic news out today. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas will release it quarterly energy survey at 10:30 followed by EIA inventory number, as well as Natural gas report, which is a day late due to Christmas.

Portfolio Approach

We took profits on a Material name yesterday.  To get started on our Hotline service, ask your account representative or email us at research@wstreet.com