How major US stock indexes fared Friday, 12/20/2024

U.S. stocks rose to turn what would have been one of the market’s worst weeks of the year into just a pretty bad one.

The S&P 500 rallied 1.1% Friday to shave its loss for the week down to 2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped nearly 500 points, and the Nasdaq composite gained 1%.

A report said a measure of inflation the Federal Reserve likes to use was slightly lower last month than expected. It’s an encouraging signal after the Fed shocked markets Wednesday by saying worries about inflation could keep it from cutting interest rates in 2025 as much as earlier thought.

On Friday:

The S&P 500 rose 63.77 points, or 1.1%, to 5,930.85.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 498.02 points, or 1.2%, to 42,840.26.

The Nasdaq composite rose 199.83 points, or 1%, to 19,572.60.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 20.87 points, or 0.9%, to 2,242.37.

For the week:

The S&P 500 is down 120.24 points, or 2%.

The Dow is down 987.80 points, or 2.3%.

The Nasdaq is down 354.13 points, or 1.8%.

The Russell 2000 is down 104.52 points, or 4.5%.

For the year:

The S&P 500 is up 1,161.02 points, or 24.3%.

The Dow is up 5,150.72 points, or 13.7%.

The Nasdaq is up 4,561.25 points, or 30.4%.

The Russell 2000 is up 215.30 points, or 10.6%.

The Associated Press