Trading was thin on Friday, as you would expect on the day after Thanksgiving; but the major indices still advanced in the session to finish the week solidly higher and with a couple new records.
The NASDAQ enjoyed the best performance by climbing 0.92% (or about 111 points) to another new all-time closing high of 12,205.85. The index jumped just about 3% in this short, three-and-a-half day week.
The S&P also made history with a rise of 0.24% to a fresh record of 3638.35. It was up about 2.3% for the week.
The Dow rose 0.13% (or nearly 38 points) to 29,910.37. That’s not a record for the index, since you probably remember it eclipsing 30,000 for the first time this past Tuesday.
So it’s just under 136 points away from getting back to the mountaintop again, which shouldn’t be too hard with all of the market’s positive sentiment at the moment. The index was up 2.2% this week.
It’s been a pretty impressive turnaround from last week, when the S&P and Dow both declined for the first time in November and the NASDAQ barely managed to stay in the green.
Last week, we were more concerned with the surging coronavirus cases and fears that the market may be getting ahead of itself after strong vaccine data from Pfizer (NYSE:PFE)/BioNTech and Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA).
But the vaccine news continues to be encouraging, including PFE announcing that its efficacy was actually 95% and AstraZeneca (NASDAQ:AZN)/University of Oxford outlining another intriguing candidate.
So investors are feeling pretty good right about now… and maybe there’s a little holiday spirit mixed in there. It’s now Black Friday, marking the official start of the march toward Christmas and a New Year that will hopefully see the end of this pandemic.
Of course, there’ll be bumps along the way, especially since we’re still months from getting things back to normal at best.
But November was a rather smooth ride higher for stocks. With one day to go in the month, each of the major indices are up double-digits.
Today's Portfolio Highlights:
Marijuana Innovators: This service is dominating the scoreboards right now, as marijuana stocks are having a great month after batting 1000 in five state ballot initiatives during the election. On Friday, this portfolio had the top three winners with Aurora Cannabis (NYSE:ACB, +20.1%), Aphria (NASDAQ:APHA, +10.7%) and Canopy Growth (CGC, +7.5%). Perhaps even more impressive though, these three stocks are also among the top movers in the past 30 days: ACB (+113%), APHA (+75.4%), (CGC, +57.5%). GrowGeneration (NASDAQ:GRWG, +53.92%) made the list as well, giving Marijuana Innovators four of the top five winners in the past month.
Counterstrike: "Monday will be the end of the month, which can see some strange moves. From there we will enter the last month of the year, near all-time highs. I expect the market to creep up into the Christmas holiday.
"Next week we will see a lot of econ data in the form of Chicago PMI, ISM Manufacturing and Services PMI, ADP, Claims, Beige Book, payrolls and unemployment. We also will have Powell on the hill testifying both Tuesday and Wednesday.
"One more day and a new month begins to close out this wacky year. The portfolio is looking great and we are close to taking profits in a handful of stocks. The goal next week will be to put some money in our pocket, add a couple new longs and perhaps even a short position." -- Jeremy Mullin
Options Trader: “Stocks closed higher today, and higher for the week. That also makes it 2 weeks in a row for the Nasdaq, and 4 weeks in a row for the small-cap Russell 2000.
“Take note: the breaking out of small-cap stocks has long been considered a powerful bullish signal. And their continuing outperformance suggests even bigger moves ahead.
“In the meantime, our economic rebound continues to impress with report after report showing the economy beating expectations, and even setting records.
“What we’re seeing in both the economy and the market is history in the making.” – Kevin Matras
Have a Great Weekend!
Jim Giaquinto
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