CNBC Business News Update - Market Close: The S&P Notches Rare Back To Back 20+% Full Year Gains, Bitcoin Wins Best Performing Asset Of The Year, Mortgage Rates Top 7.1% To Start 2025 12/31/24

Episode Date: December 31, 2024

From Wall Street to Main Street, the latest on the markets and what it means for your money. Updated regularly on weekdays, featuring CNBC expert analysis and sound from top business newsmakers. Anchored by CNBC's Jessica Ettinger.

I'm Jessica Edinger, CNBC. Investors celebrate a strong 2024 for stocks. The closing bell call from CNBC's Mike Santoli. We're going to go out at approximately a 23% year-to-date gain, a little more than that for the S&P 500, the second straight year of approximately that gain on a total return basis with dividends looking at 25 percent so a great year markets open thursday morning after the new year's day holiday now the major averages did limp to the close in the red tuesday but the major indexes notched big gains for the year the dow up 12 percent the s&p 500 index up 23 percent the nasdaq up a whopping 28 percent. Now for the S&P 500 index, it was the second year in a row with a gain of more than 20 percent. That is extremely rare. It happened only three other times in the 1930s, 50s, and 90s. In the 1990s and 96, 97, and 98, the S&P returned more than 20 percent three years in a row. That was the only time that ever happened some say 2024 was

a super easy year to make money in stocks all the big names you know they really outperformed you talk about the top 10 15 20 stocks i mean they delivered spectacularly it was kind of that year where you could almost throw a dart as a retail investor if you had a long bias. If you tried to get cute and play some of the contrarian plays, they didn't work out very well. But if you went with kind of the chalk this year, it was a very strong year. Tasty Live founder and CEO Tom Sosnoff on CNBC. For the new year, many investors are not betting on another 20% gain. I think that we might eke out another positive year, the overall market, but I think it's going to be a lot bumpier ride here in 2025. I think we're

due for a correction probably maybe in the first half. We haven't had one, what, about a year and a half now, and we're due for one. The Luthold Group's Jim Paulson on CNBC. So what was the best investment for 2024? The one with the biggest gain? Bitcoin. Bitcoin surging about 30% since Election Day, finishing the year up 120%. CNBC's Frank Holland says Bitcoin started 2024 at about $40,000

and was hovering around $95,000 on New Year's Eve. The housing market was hoping for a big boost from the Fed cutting interest rates but mortgage rates do not follow the Fed. They loosely follow the 10-year treasury and its yields were higher. Would-be homebuyers are starting this new year facing the average rate on a 30-year home loan at 7.1 percent according to Mortgage News Daily. On Thursday's watch list back at it for the first business day of the new year and of the first quarter. We find out how many people applied for unemployment benefits

last week. We get the latest on construction spending and final car sales numbers for December and the full year. And the PGA Tour season opens with the Century in Lahaina, Hawaii. Here's to good health and prosperity in the new year from all of us. I'm Jessica Ettinger, CNBC. Get a head start on 2025 with the hottest tech event, CES, the Jobs Report, and meet the future of biotech and pharma at JPM Healthcare, and the meeting of world leaders in Davos. Plus, the first Fed decision of the year, CNBC.