U.S. Indices: Marginal But Higher Close Before Christmas

On Thursday, Wall Street pushed peacefully after a half-session, obliging Christmas Eve. The DJ index increased to 30,199 points by 0.23 percent. The S&P 500’s wide index advanced 0.35 percent to 3,703 points, while the Nasdaq Composite Index gained 0.26 percent to 12,804 points, rich in technology and biotech stocks.

After months of talks, on Thursday, Brussels and London finally reached an agreement on their post-Brexit trade ties, thereby eliminating the possibility of a ‘no deal’ that was feared by the markets. While the UK officially left the EU on 31 January, since then, as part of a transition period lasting until the end of this year, it has remained part of the single market and subject to EU standards. The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson, each declared that this agreement had been reached just one week before Britain’s successful exit from the EU. On the markets that had largely expected the maneuver, there is little reaction to this announcement to notice.

After an early close of Thursday, Wall Street was closed for Christmas on Friday. Following Donald Trump’s reluctance Tuesday to enact it as it is, the development remained reluctant due to resistance from Republicans and Democrats to change the bill, including stimulus and government spending.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that elected officials will meet again Monday to vote on a $2,000 boost in personal assistance, up from $600 currently funded by the bill, an amount that Donald Trump finds “ridiculously small.”

The biotechnology firm Altimmune Inc (ALT) saw its share price dropping by -9.27 percent to settle at $11.45. The Gaithersburg, Maryland-headquartered company saw the decline as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) postponed company’s application for clinical trials of the its COVID – 19 vaccine in humans.

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