CNBC Daily Open: A missing Santa Rally isn’t necessarily bad news

This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.

Rocky week of trading
U.S. stocks rose on Friday but still ended the week lower. The S&P 500 Energy sector bucked the trend, and is up more than 3% for the week. Europe’s Stoxx 600 index dropped 0.49%. Auto stocks were among the worst performers, with Stellantis shares losing around 2% after the company reported a 45.7% reduction in 2024 production.

Boeing’s year of rebuilding
Boeing has not posted an annual profit since 2018, which saw the first of two fatal crashes of its 737 Maxes that killed 346 people. A year ago, an unused emergency exit door blew out midair from a nearly new Boeing 737 Max 9 operated by Alaska Airlines. New CEO Kelly Ortberg, who began in the top job in August, is tasked with ensuring Boeing can ramp up production and maintain quality. Here’s how he’s getting on.

Foreign phone sales in China plunge
Sales of foreign phone brands in China came in at 3.04 million units in November, according to CNBC calculations based on data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology. That represents a 47.4% plunge from November 2023, suggesting brands like Apple have been struggling in the Chinese market.

Microsoft invests big in data centers
Microsoft plans to spend $80 billion in fiscal 2025 on the construction of data centers that can handle artificial intelligence workloads, the company said in a Friday blog post. Over half of the expected AI infrastructure spending will take place in the U.S., Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith wrote. Microsoft’s 2025 fiscal year ends in June.

[PRO] Eyes on December jobs report
Big pieces of economic data this week are minutes for the U.S. Federal Reserve’s December meeting, out Wednesday, and December’s jobs report, out Friday. While neither is likely to change the Fed’s interest rate decision at its January meeting, they could provide more clarity on the central bank’s moves in 2025.  

On Friday, the S&P 500 added 1.26%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.8% and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 1.77%. Still, losses from previous trading sessions — prior to Friday, the S&P and Nasdaq were on a five-day losing streak — were too heavy to bear. For the week, the S&P 500 declined 0.48%, the Dow lost 0.60% and the Nasdaq backtracked 0.51%.

This means the so-called Santa Claus Rally, a phenomenon in which stocks climb during the last five trading days of the year and the first two of the next, didn’t descend on markets this year.

Santa’s lack of visitation this year could indicate a tougher time ahead for stocks As the late  Yale Hirsch, founder of the Stock Trader’s Almanac in 1968, said, “If Santa Claus should fail to call, bears may come to Broad and Wall.”

That said, putting too much faith in such signals may be the adult equivalent of believing that it’s really Santa putting a PlayStation under the tree because we were nice children.

And just as we grew older and realized it was money that begot us gifts, it behooves us to remember that the stock market is a bet on how much cash companies can bring in.

On that front, UBS‘ David Lefkowitz, the bank’s chief investment officer of U.S. equities, is feeling optimistic. “We expect the bull market to continue with the S&P 500 reaching 6,600 by the end of the year, primarily driven by healthy profit growth of 9%,” Lefkowitz wrote in a recent note. His price target implies about 11% upside from Friday’s close.

Now, that’s a gift so precious that no person, real or imaginary, could give.

— CNBC’s Fred Imbert, Pia Singh, Sean Conlon, Jesse Pound and Sarah Min contributed to this report.