U.S. stocks edged higher Thursday, as major indexes gained momentum going into the last trading days of the year.
The Dow industrials added 43 points, or 0.2%, to 24817 in recent trading, while the S&P 500 gained less than 0.1%. The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.1% after wobbling earlier in the session. All three indexes are on track for a second consecutive day of gains.
Stocks had been struggling this week amid a tepid pace of trading around the Christmas and New Year’s Day holidays. Still, analysts and some investors say the pause hasn’t damped their outlook for stocks in 2018, especially when many have used the Republicans’ sweeping tax overhaul to boost their expectations.
“There’s a tremendous amount of optimism for 2018,” said Steven Wagner, chief executive of Omnia Family Wealth, a wealth-management firm based in Aventura, Fla. “It’s all going to come down to earnings and what someone’s willing to pay for that stream of income.”
Earnings for companies in the S&P 500 are expected to grow roughly 12% next year, which would be the index’s best growth rate since 2011, according to FactSet.
On Thursday, shares of technology firms in the S&P 500 were up 0.2% in recent trading, as those companies rose a second day to pare losses suffered earlier in the week.
Facebook shares were up 0.6%, while chip maker Nvidia added 0.8%.Apple rose 0.5%, cutting its weekly decline to 2% since concerns were raised over the pace of sales of its iPhone X.
Several energy companies were also among the biggest gainers in the S&P 500, including Range Resources , up 2.9%, and natural gas producer EQT, which added 1%. Shares of energy companies have been benefiting from a recent boost in oil prices.
Financial stocks gained as the yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury bill edged up to 2.427%, according to Tradeweb, from 2.412% Wednesday after their biggest daily decline since September. Yields move inversely to prices.
Meanwhile, markets in Europe and Japan were held back by a drop in the dollar.
The Stoxx Europe 600 was down 0.3%, as the euro rose 0.4% against the dollar to $1.1943—around its highest level since November. The index of blue-chip eurozone companies generates roughly 17% of its revenues from the U.S., according to FactSet, and those revenues are worth less when translated back if the dollar is weaker.
The broader WSJ Dollar Index, which tracks the dollar against a basket of 16 other currencies, was off 0.4% Thursday after falling for seven of the past eight sessions to around a two-month low.
“In the near term, this is probably about less liquidity in the market,” said Michael Herzum, head of multiasset strategy at Union Investment.
“But we think the dollar will continue to weaken in 2018,” he said, noting market participants may be underestimating the chance of a pickup in inflation and resulting monetary policy changes in Europe and Japan next year.
Elsewhere in Asia, Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average fell 0.6% as the yen rose sharply against the dollar and shares of financials fell.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.9%, while South Korea’s Kospi added 1.3%, helped by a 3.2% jump in index giant Samsung Electronics.