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What you need to know
- The S&P 500 fell 0.4% on Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024, stumbling into the finish line at the end of an upbeat year for stock market returns.
- Tesla shares tumbled ahead of the carmaker's quarterly vehicle delivery update later this week.
- Shares of Moderna surged after a report listing the vaccine maker's stock as a top pick for 2025.
While stocks provided solid returns to investors in 2024 the major U.S. equity indexes fell on the last trading day of the calendar year. This extended a series of losses following Christmas.
The S&P 500 gave back morning gains to end the New Year's Eve session down 0.4%. Investors bid farewell a successful year for the tech industry by selling the Nasdaq composite, which fell by 0.9%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped less than 0.1%.
Tesla (TSLA) shares dropped 3.3%, losing the most of any S&P 500 stock. On Thursday, the carmaker will release its quarterly deliveries as the market enters a new year. Analysts expect Tesla will post record fourth-quarter delivery figures, but the total for the year would fall short even if results meet the high expectations. The stock rose after the election, as analysts imagined how Tesla would benefit from Elon Musk’s role as the new president. However, shares fell in the last few days of 2018.
Despite the impressive 170% gain in Nvidia’s stock in 2024 the shares fell by 2.3% at the end of 2018. Analysts still have high expectations of the chipmaker in the long term, predicting robust growth, driven by artificial intelligence, gaming and enterprise markets.
The shares of Texas-based NRG Energy fell 2.1%. Investors reassessed the opportunities utilities have to supply electricity for AI data centres that are energy intensive. The stock’s decline reversed some of its gains throughout the year. NRG’s stock gained nearly 75% in 2024 despite Tuesday’s decline.
Moderna (MRNA) shares jumped 5.6%, logging the best daily performance in the S&P 500 in 2024’s closing session. Barron’s ranked the stock of the vaccine manufacturer as one of its top picks for 2024, noting that the shares are undervalued after a year-to date decline in value exceeding 50%. Although analysts remain concerned about Moderna’s elevated research and development (R&D) spending, the potential implementation of vaccines against cytomegalovirus and personalized cancer vaccines could eventually provide a sales boost.
On Tuesday, the rise in crude futures was largely due to positive data coming out of China’s industrial sector. This helped boost gains among oil and gas companies. The shares of exploration and oil production company APA Corp. gained 3.0% while the shares of refiner Marathon Petroleum rose 2.9%.
The shares of the frozen potato distribution company Lamb Weston (LW), gained by 2.9%. In the final sessions of 2024 the stock experienced considerable volatility as Jana Partners, an activist investor, intensified its efforts to influence the company’s direction by working with a former executive. Jana put pressure on Lamb Weston earlier this year to replace its CEO after it reported a quarter loss and cut down the outlook for next year.
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