The Rundown - Tesla Looks to End 3-Day Skid, Pharma Stock Plunges 50% After Pfizer Ends Partnership

Episode Date: December 31, 2024

Stock market update for December 31, 2024. Follow our new Instagram account ⁠@TheRundownDaily

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in five minutes. My name is Zad Admani, and today is Tuesday, December 31st. In today's episode, we tell you some interesting stats about the stock market from this year and why the markets are on a generational run. We also tell you about a hack at the U.S. Treasury and why one of the best performing stocks in the S&P this year is a relatively unknown company. Then stick around to the end of the show to get a preview of Tesla's delivery number.

and find out how much money was invested in ETFs this year. All right, let's go. Well, so much for the Santa Claus rally this year. Stock started the week off by dropping again. The S&P, NASDAQ and Dow were all down more than 1% on Monday. The S&P 500 has now dropped for three consecutive days in a row. So it looks like the Santa Claus rally not coming through for investors this year. Now, the rally technically runs through the first two trading days of January,

which would be this Friday. So we technically still have three more trading days left for stocks to turn things around. But it's not looking so good right now. Now, today is the last trading day of 2024. And even though stocks are on track for a down December, it's hard to complain because things have been pretty great for investors this year. The S&P 500 is up 24% in 2024, which is funny because the S&P was also up 24% in 2023 as well.

In fact, that's the best two-year gain for the S&P 500 since 19. 1998. So the stock market has been on a generational run these past couple of years. It's been a great time to be an investor. The best performing stock in the S&P this year was Palantir, which was up more than 360%. So shout out to all my Palantir investors out there. Huge win for us in 2024. And the worst performing stock in the S&P 500 was Walgreens, which dropped 63%. Oh man, that's bad. Big Tech continued to carry the markets this year. The magnificent seven stocks were responsible for 57% of the S&P 500's gains this year. That's actually down from the 65% in 2023,

but still, big tech continues to dominate. And I think we need more companies to step up in the S&P 500 next year. Now, it wasn't just a great year for stock market investors. Gold actually outperformed the S&P 500 this year, jumping more than 26%. In fact, gold is on track to have its best year

in over a decade. And we have to mention Bitcoin as well. It was up 110% this year, which is another solid year for Bitcoin, but it's actually less than the 150% gain that it saw in 2023. So overall, great year for investors, and let's hope the good vibes continue in 2025. Let's run through some headlines. The U.S. Treasury was hacked in a breach the department is calling a major incident. Now, the culprit is believed to be a Chinese state-sponsored hacker who gained access

and stole unclassified documents. His hack happened in early December, the Treasury Department said it was alerted about the breach on December 8th, and it's working with the U.S. Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI to fully assess the hack's impact. Now, China is already distancing themselves from the hack, saying that it rejects responsibility and opposes all forms of hacking attacks. In fact, Chinese officials are calling this a smear campaign against China, while U.S. Treasury officials and security experts say this fits a pattern of attacks linked to a Chinese-backed incident. So this just elevates the tension between China and the U.S.

It's going to be interesting to see what happens between the U.S.-China relationship next year as a new presidential administration comes in. And don't forget, you still have things like the TikTok band that's in limbo right now, which could impact this relationship as well. So something to keep an eye on. Let's shift gears and talk about a company

that I think deserved more recognition in 2024 because you've probably never heard of them. I'm talking about the company Vistra. It was the second best performing stock in the S&P 500 this year, ahead of NVIDIA and only trailing Pallantir. Vistra is a nuclear power plant operator, and they're having a big year because there's renewed optimism and interest in nuclear energy, thanks in large part to the AI boom. Big tech companies are rushing to build out AI data centers, and those AI data centers require a ton of energy.

So they're turning to nuclear to meet the energy demands. Like Microsoft signed an agreement with Vistr's competitor, Constellation Energy back in September, and a similar partnership was signed between Amazon and a nuclear power data center, Talion Energy, back in March. And then just a few weeks ago, Meta jumped on the bandwagon, saying that it was seeking nuclear power developers for reactors, specifically to help reach its AI goals. So there is a renewed interest in nuclear thanks to AI. And what's interesting about Vistra is that it just joined the S&P 500 index back in May. So pretty strong rookie year for Vistra. And we'll have to see if the good times keep rolling in 2025 or if the company experiences a sophomore slump.

I think a lot of that's going to depend on if big tech continues to pour resources into nuclear power plants. But yeah, I just wanted to show Vistra some love because they're having a fantastic year. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Tesla shares are on the rise this morning as they look to rebound from a three-day losing streak. And we mentioned yesterday, but Tesla is going to be reporting their delivery numbers for Q4 on Thursday. And they're going to need to report a record quarter to avoid their first annual sales decline ever. They need at least 515,000 deliveries in Q4 to hit their growth target for 2020. according to Bloomberg. And right now, estimates have them delivering 510,000 cars. So we'll see.

Tesla's stock is up around 2% this morning, so investors seem to be somewhat optimistic. Tesla usually reports these delivery numbers before the market opens, so we'll likely be covering it on Thursday's show. So make sure you guys tune in for that. Now, while Tesla investors are feeling pretty good going into the new year, Sangamo therapeutic investors not feeling so good, because their shares are down more than 50% this morning after Pfizer called it quits on a partnership with them to develop a new hemophilia drug. The drug therapy actually met its goal in a critical late-stage trial earlier this year, putting the companies on track to file the treatment for U.S. and European approval in 2025. Then Pfizer at the last minute was like, nope, never mind,

saying that they don't see enough demand for another treatment option from hemophilia patients. That totally blindsided Sangamo therapeutics and their investors dropping the stock more than 50% this morning. What a way to end the year because Sangamo's stock was up more than 300% this year prior to this news. These pharma company stocks are insanely volatile. It's crazy. Let's wrap the show with the fun fact. 2024 was a big year for ETFs. Investors funneled a record $1 trillion into U.S. listed ETFs this year. Total assets in these funds are now at $10.6 trillion up 30% from last year.

I think this just shows that investors feel very confident and bullish about the U.S. economy. Plus, there's like an ETF for everything these days. This year, we got newly approved Bitcoin ETFs. There's leverage ETFs. There's option-based strategies ETFs. You know, ETFs have typically had a reputation for being passive. Well, 30% of inflows in 2024 were for actively managed funds, which are becoming more and more popular these days. I think we're going to see that trend continue in 2025.

Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. Now remember the stock market will be closed tomorrow for new years, so we won't have a show tomorrow, but we will be back on Thursday, likely talking about Tesla's delivery numbers. Hope everyone has a fantastic new year. 2024 was a big year for us here at the rundown. We started posting this podcast earlier this year,

and it's just been awesome to see the growth and the feedback and the reaction from you guys. So thank you guys so much for that. And a special shout-out to everyone that listens every single day, and for those of you guys that are giving us a five-star rating, and for people that comment on Spotify, that vote in the Spotify polls, again, all that really does help us out. So we're very excited to see where the podcast goes in 2025.

By the way, we actually started posting clips of this podcast on Instagram. We'll post the link to the account in the description. We're going to start posting some more bonus content on there, like graphics and charts that I bet you'll find pretty interesting. Thank you guys again for listening. Shout out to Mike and Connor for all the help behind the scenes. Happy New Year, everybody, and we'll see you guys back here on Thursday. This is the rundown, your real-time resource for news events and trends in the markets.

All views presented in the show reflect the opinions of the guests. You should not take any mention of a publicly traded security as recommendation to buy, sell or hold that security. Rounddown guests are not financial advisors and are not affiliated with public holdings or its subsidiaries. You should make your own financial and investment decisions or consult. Respected professionals. Learn more at public.com disclosures. In partnership with Zayidmani, brokerage services for U.S. listed, registered securities are offered by Open to the Public Investing Incorporated, member FINRA and SIPC.