A spot of holiday spirit has stocks on the rise.
As is typical, the stock market will be closed on Friday for Christmas, and to ensure that traders can get home early, Wall Street will be closing down early today at 1 PM Eastern time. On the heels of some positive holiday spirit, as well as progress on economic stimulus, the stock indexes managed to pick a few last minute gains before the festivities.
The Dow Jones index managed to pick up a modest 60 points, while both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq indexes increased 0.2% in value. Out of all business sectors, technology seemed to be performing highest this morning, with a general increase of 0.7%. Out of all the indexes, the Nasdaq is set to close out the year in the lead, with a total value of around 42%.
Despite these gains, expectations have been tempered somewhat by conflict between Congress and the President. After Congress passed their new stimulus bill at the beginning of the week, President Donald Trump threatened to veto the bill on the grounds that the $600 stimulus payments to US citizens are too low, suggesting they should be $2000 instead. House Democrats concurred with this proposal and moved to have the bill updated, but the GOP has staunchly refused.
JUST IN: House Republicans have rejected a measure that would increase direct payments to Americans to $2,000, leaving the future of the $900 billion stimulus package in doubt https://t.co/zcBZe3k3dv
— CNN (@CNN) December 24, 2020
Even in the event that Trump does veto the bill, he could still be overridden by the Senate, which is why some investors aren’t especially worried. “Markets don’t care too much about Trump’s criticism of the stimulus bill as a formal veto is considered unlikely, [and] the joint stimulus/budget legislation passed both the House and Senate with veto-proof majorities,” Adam Crisafulli of Vital Knowledge said in a note. “Even if Trump were to successfully veto the measure, Biden will be president in only 27 days and can sign it then.”
