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* GoDaddy rises after Starboard takes stake
* Travel stocks drop on Omicron-related flight groundings
* Indexes up: Dow 0.54%, S&P 0.85%, Nasdaq 1%
Dec 27 (Reuters) – The S&P 500 was on track for a record
closing high on Monday, as a strong retail sales report
underscored the strength of the U.S. economy and overshadowed
worries from Omicron-driven flight cancellations that hit stocks
in the travel sector.
Retail sales in the country rose 8.5% during this year’s
holiday shopping season from Nov. 1 to Dec. 24, powered by an
ecommerce boom, a report by Mastercard Inc showed.
The S&P 500 retailing index firmed 0.4%.
Travel-related stocks, typically sensitive to news around
the coronavirus, declined after U.S. airlines canceled about 800
more flights on Monday after nixing thousands of flights during
the Christmas weekend, as Omicron cases soared.
The S&P 1500 airlines index shed 0.6%. Cruise
operators Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, Royal
Caribbean and Carnival Corp fell 1.1%-2.3%,
leading declines on the benchmark S&P 500.
“The market is much more likely to respond to Omicron
crimping consumer demand, as opposed to it being an issue of
airlines not being able to supply the flights,” said Aoifinn
Devitt, chief investment officer at Moneta in Chicago.
“That supply issue is a temporary phenomenon that will
definitely be disruptive. But it’s a fixable phenomenon.”
Monday’s climb marks a fourth straight session of gain for
Wall Street’s main stock indexes after encouraging news last
week related to the Omicron variant calmed investor worried
about the strain’s economic impact.
All the 11 main S&P 500 sector indexes advanced, with tech
leading percentage gains.
At 11:20 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
was up 193.81 points, or 0.54%, at 36,144.37 and the S&P 500
was up 40.32 points, or 0.85%, at 4,766.11.
The Nasdaq Composite was up 156.77 points, or 1.00%,
at 15,810.15 on a boost from megacap companies, including Tesla
Inc, Microsoft Corp, Apple Inc, and
Meta Platform, rising between 0.9% and 3.3%.
Main stock indexes in the United States are eyeing a third
straight yearly gain, with the benchmark S&P 500 set for
its best three-year performance since 1999. The Dow is eyeing a
17.8% annual jump, while the Nasdaq is looking at a 22.1% climb.
Looking ahead, thinner-than-usual trading volumes ahead of
New Year could make markets susceptible to volatile moves,
although the last five trading days of December and the first
two days of January have boded well for U.S. stocks 75% of the
time since 1945, according to CFRA Research data.
GoDaddy Inc rose 8.9% after Activist investor
Starboard Value LP has purchased a 6.5% stake in web services
firm worth about $800 million.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 2.38-to-1 ratio
on the NYSE and by a 1.20-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded 40 new 52-week highs and no new low,
while the Nasdaq recorded 69 new highs and 70 new lows.
(Reporting by Medha Singh and Anisha Sircar in Bengaluru;
editing by Uttaresh.V)
Read More: S&P 500 set to end at record high on retail sales cheer