Many of Wall Street’s top minds were hoping for a Santa Claus rally heading into the holidays after a brutal year in the stock market. The idea—which admittedly sounds like wishful thinking from the leaders of the world of finance—is that as the holiday season comes around, increased consumer spending and investor optimism lead to a brief jump in stock prices. In the final week of 2022, though, there’s been no rally. The S&P 500 is down more than 3% in December, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite has shed 6%.
Ipek Ozkardeskaya, a senior analyst at Swissquote Bank, said that while 2022 may not end on a positive note, there has been “encouraging news” in the form of China’s economic reopening. Chinese equities are on fire after officials in the country said it will remove quarantine requirements for international travelers starting Jan. 8. The shift in travel policy is another sign that Beijing is moving away from nearly three years of strict zero-COVID restrictions that hurt economic growth and sparked protests across the country in recent months.
