CNBC Business News Update - Market Close: Stocks Rally In Shortened Trading Session, Housing Market Buckling Under Rate Pressure, Apple Races Toward $4T Market Value

Episode Date: December 24, 2024

The latest in business, financial, and market news and how it impacts your money, reported by CNBC's Peter Schacknow

I'm Peter Schach, now CNBC. Stocks have ended a shortened trading session with some solid gains. The Dow rose 390 points to close at 43,297. The S&P 500 rallied 66 points, or 1.1%, its best one-day gain since November 6th. The Nasdaq jumped 1.4%. The Dow up for a fourth straight day following a 10-day losing streak. The S&P 500 and NASDAQ up for a third straight day. CFRA Research Chief Investment Strategist Sam Stovall is optimistic about the days and the year ahead. I think that when you continue to look

at earnings growth expectations, the overall trend in inflation, you know, I think the PCE number will be hot in the next month, but then start to work its way lower as we move further into 2025. So it's those kind of things that I think investors are going to be focusing on latter part of this year and into next year. The market seems to be shaking off the idea that interest rate cuts will happen less often than anticipated next year. The housing market, not so much. Ivy Zellman is executive vice president of housing industry research firm Zellman & Associates. She says rising mortgage rates are proving to be an issue. The affordability index is probably about almost 25% above trend line for existing homes

and about 10 to 15% above for new homes. So I think today it's really troubling for the entry level buyer. We are seeing more resilience for the higher move up a segment, especially those that are able to use cash. But it's a challenging market. Apple rose more than one percent today to close at $258.20 per share. Apple needs to gain just about $6 more a share to achieve a $4 trillion market value. Peter Schach now, CNBC.