Market Recap: Board Marks Losses for Shortened Trading Session

NEW YORK, N.Y. – After a shortened trading session when the market closed for the Thanksgiving holiday, US shares fell broadly on Wall Street on Friday, leaving the stock market a bit lower than its record highs.

The S&P 500 index marked about 0.4% decline, falling over 112.59 points towards 28,051.41. The Nasdaq index also slid around 0.5%, going down 39.70 points towards 8,665.47. The smaller company stocks index, the Russell 2000, also experienced the burnt of the downtrend on Friday with a 0.6% decline, going down by 9.60 points towards 1,624.50. With the market open for only half a day on Friday, the trading volume for the week was also lighter than usual.

Further, bond prices have also declined for the week while the returns on the 10-year Treasury has gone up around1.77% compared to the 1.76% late on Wednesday.

Despite the small pullback, the trading week still ended with the benchmark index gaining its seventh weekly gains out of eight weeks. The S&P 500 index also closed out the month of November as one of its highest monthly gains since June this year.

According to a senior portfolio manager at the Global Investments, Tom Martin, the US market had three solid days and had already tracked an all-time high for the S&P 500 index during the session closing on Wednesday. He further stated that the index had been a ruler in the market since early in October up to now.

All three of the major stock indexes in the US have climbed up to multiple record highs in the past weeks, which helped boost the gains for November. At the end of the trading week on November 29, also ending the month, the S&P 500 index has already recorded a 3.4% increase, while Nasdaq tracked 4.5% gains, which was mostly powered by stocks in technology, and the Dow Jones also rose by around 3.7%.

On the other hand, the biggest decliners on the half trading session on Friday was the Qualcomm and Lam Research for the technology sector as each firm dropped by 1.5%. Drugmakers have also pushed the decline lower with the 1.2% drop on the shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb.

But, the biggest losers were the energy stocks as the US crude oil price went down by around 5.1%, while the Devon Energy recorded a 2.8% drop and the Helmerich and Payne dipped by 2.3%.

Further, the market still waits on the Washington-imposed tariffs on Chinese-made products set to take effect on December 15.