Stock Market Today: New Record High Within Reach for S&P 500
The main benchmarks notched modest gains in the penultimate trading session of 2023, putting the S&P 500 within striking distance of a new all-time high.


Volume continues to taper off ahead of the long holiday weekend. As a reminder, both the stock and bond markets will be closed Monday for New Year's Day. Today, though, market participants who stuck around were watching the S&P 500 as it closed in on a new all-time high.
In intraday trading, the S&P 500 climbed as high as 4,793.30, a stone's throw away from its all-time closing high of 4,796.56 from January 3, 2022. The broad-market index finished just below here, at 4,783, up 0.04% on the day.
The blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average, meanwhile, rose 0.1% to 37,710 – a new record closing high – while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.03% to 15,095. The Nasdaq remains about 6% below its all-time closing high of 16,057.44 from November 19, 2021.

Sign up for Kiplinger’s Free E-Newsletters
Profit and prosper with the best of expert advice on investing, taxes, retirement, personal finance and more - straight to your e-mail.
Profit and prosper with the best of expert advice - straight to your e-mail.
Today's gains add to this year's Santa Claus rally, a period encompassing the last five trading days of December and the first two trading days in January when stocks historically do well.
"[T]hese 7 days are more likely to be higher than any other 7 days of the year, [with the S&P 500] up 79.5% of the time," writes Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at Carson Group, on X. The data Detrick cites goes back to 1950, and shows the S&P 500 has averaged a 1.3% gain over the seven-day time frame.
Since its close on Thursday, December 21 – the start of this year's Santa Claus rally – the S&P 500 is up 0.8%.
Jobless claims edge higher
Thursday saw the busiest day for economic data this week. Most notably, a report from the Labor Department showed initial jobless claims rose 2,000 last week to 205,000.
"Jobless claims increased during the week ending December 23, but overall, they continue to trend sideways and have yet to show the sustained weakness that the Federal Reserve would like to see," says Eugenio Alemán, chief economist at Raymond James. "The labor market remains strong and reinforces our view that the Fed is likely to hold rates at current levels until the second half of 2024."
More jobs data rolls in next week, including Friday's release of the December nonfarm payrolls report.
Microsoft can rally another 20%, analyst says
In single-stock news, Microsoft (MSFT, +0.3%) edged higher after Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives said it remains a "best ideas" pick. Ives also raised his price target on the mega-cap stock to $450 from $425, representing an implied upside of 20% to current levels.
The increased price target reflects "incrementally bullish recent AI [artificial intelligence] customer checks with 'game changing' Co-Pilot monetization now on the doorstep for MSFT into 2024," Ives writes in a note to clients. "We believe the stock still has yet to price in what we view as the next wave of cloud and AI growth coming to the Redmond story with fiscal with a strong competitive cloud edge vs Amazon and Google."
MSFT is set to close out 2023 up 57%, but it's only the third-best Dow Jones stock on the year. In first place is Salesforce (CRM, -0.4%) with its 101% gain and Intel (INTC, -0.7%) comes in a close second, up 91%.
Related content
- S&P 500 Stocks With the Most Upside
- What Are the Dogs of the Dow for 2024?
- Best Investing Moves to Make Before the End of the Year
Get Kiplinger Today newsletter — free
Profit and prosper with the best of Kiplinger's advice on investing, taxes, retirement, personal finance and much more. Delivered daily. Enter your email in the box and click Sign Me Up.

With over a decade of experience writing about the stock market, Karee Venema is the senior investing editor at Kiplinger.com. She joined the publication in April 2021 after 10 years of working as an investing writer and columnist at a local investment research firm. In her previous role, Karee focused primarily on options trading, as well as technical, fundamental and sentiment analysis.
-
Stock Market Today: Trump Retreats, Markets Rejoice
Stocks rally, yields soften, the dollar rises, and even beaten-down names enjoy the wages of potential trade peace.
By David Dittman
-
In Trump’s Economy Should 401(k) Savers 'Set It and Forget It?'
It’s hard to bury your head in the sand when the markets are volatile. Here’s when it makes sense and when it doesn’t.
By Donna Fuscaldo
-
Stock Market Today: Trump Retreats, Markets Rejoice
Stocks rally, yields soften, the dollar rises, and even beaten-down names enjoy the wages of potential trade peace.
By David Dittman
-
Stock Market Today: Stocks Soar on China Trade Talk Hopes
Treasury Secretary Bessent said current U.S.-China trade relations are unsustainable and signaled hopes for negotiations.
By Karee Venema
-
How Can Investors Profit From AI's Energy Use?
Global energy demand is expected to grow by leaps and bounds over the next several years as AI usage accelerates. Here's how to get a piece of the pie.
By Jacob Schroeder
-
Stock Market Today: Dow Drops 971 Points as Powell Pressure Ramps Up
President Trump is increasing his attacks against Jerome Powell, insisting the Fed chair cut interest rates.
By Karee Venema
-
Stock Market Today: No 'Powell Put'? No Problem
Investors, traders and speculators look beyond both another Trump post and more signs of slowing economic activity.
By David Dittman
-
Stock Market Today: Dow Drops 699 Points After Powell Speech
Fed Chair Powell warned of a slowing economy and higher inflation but said the central bank isn't ready to cut rates just yet.
By Karee Venema
-
Stock Market Today: Stocks Struggle Amid Tariff Uncertainty
Boeing dropped after China suspended new aircraft orders, while Bank of America and Citi climbed on earnings beats.
By Karee Venema
-
Stock Market Today: Stocks Gain on Tech, Auto Tariff Talk
The Trump administration said late Friday that it will temporarily halt tariffs on some Chinese tech imports.
By Karee Venema