Wall Street Gets Ready for a Calm Start to the New Year

U.S. stocks are set for a quiet beginning on Wednesday, with not much happening as the year comes to a close. There aren't any strong signals keeping the positive vibe going about early rate cuts that recently brought the S&P 500 close to its highest point ever.

Before the official trading begins, not many people are active in the market due to the year-end holidays. We're waiting for the weekly jobless claims data on Thursday to give us something to talk about.

On Tuesday, the stock market did pretty well, even though not many people were trading since it was the day after Christmas. The main index is just 0.5% away from its highest close since January 2022 and might see its best performance in three years by the end of this quarter.

If the S&P 500 closes above 4,796.56, it means the market has been doing really well since October 2022.

Peter Andersen, who started Andersen Capital Management in Boston, shared, "Around Christmas and New Year's, things are usually quiet. But this week, I feel like a lot of people are hopeful." He also thinks that the Federal Reserve won't increase rates in 2024, and the economy will keep doing well, setting the stage for more gains in 2024.

The stock market went into high gear two weeks ago when the Fed hinted at the possibility of cutting rates in 2024, signaling the end of rate hikes. Now, traders are pretty sure there'll be a rate cut in March, with an 84% chance, up from 21% at the end of November.

As of 8:14 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 16 points (0.04%), S&P 500 e-minis were up 1.25 points (0.03%), and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 12.25 points (0.07%).

Looking at specific stocks, Bit Digital saw a 5.2% increase in premarket trading as the U.S.-based bitcoin miner plans to double its mining operating fleet to about 6.0 ether per second in 2024.

Coherus BioSciences had a big jump of 34.9% after the U.S. FDA approved its drug delivery device for its infection-fighting treatment.

First Wave BioPharma saw its shares more than double in value after agreeing to sell its inflammatory bowel disease drug to an undisclosed company.

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