U.S. stocks end lower, but book solid gains in holiday-shortened week

U.S. stocks closed slightly lower on Thursday, but a rally during the previous three sessions left the main indexes with solid gains for the holiday-shortened week.

Markets closed at 1 p.m. Eastern Time and will be closed on Friday for Christmas.

The S&P 500 SPX, -0.16%  ended 3.30 points or 0.2%, lower at 2,060.99 and booked a 2.8% gain over the week. On Thursday, nine of its 10 main sectors closed lower. The energy sector, which tallied big gains over the past few session, lead the losses, down 0.9%, despite oil prices climbing.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.29%  50.44 points, or 0.3%, to 17,552.17 and finished the week 2.5% higher. The blue-chips gauge snapped a nine-session string of triple-digit moves—its longest such streak since Sept. 26-Oct. 6 2011.

Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite COMP, +0.05%  ended the day up 2.56 points or less than 0.1%, at 5,048.49 and recorded a 2.6% gain over the week.

“Today’s volumes were exceedingly light, so we should not read too much into today’s action,” said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at BMO Private Bank.

“It is a global holiday, so markets around the world are closed. Most of the trades are probably what we’d call “cleanup trades” — harvesting tax losses, closing out positions, booking profits or sending securities to charities,” said Ablin.

The S&P 500 has booked gains of more than 1% over the previous three sessions and turned positive for the year on Wednesday. However, many on Wall Street were hoping for a more robust Santa rally, that would take the index to new highs after a sideways flat year. The S&P 500 is up 0.2% year to date, while Dow industrials is down 1.5% since the start of the year.“The S&P 500 index remains range bound above support at 1990 and below resistance at 2077-2092,” said Sam Stovall, equity strategist at S&P Capital IQ + SNL, in a note late Wednesday. “A breach of 1990 would suggest a decline to support at 1937-1963. A break above resistance, and especially over 2115, would shift the bias to bullish.”

Large oil corporations, such as Chevron Corp CVX, -1.88%  and Exxon Mobil Corp XOM, -1.07%  fell sharply, down 1.9% and 1.1% respectively.

Meanwhile, shares of retailers such as Fossil Group, Inc. FOSL, -2.37% down 2.4%, and Coach Inc. COH, -1.89%  off 1.9% for the day, also were hit.

Salesforce.com Inc. CRM, -0.27%  shares closed 0.3% lower following news late Wednesday that the software company plans to buy SteelBrick Inc., which provides a quote and billing service to small- and medium-size companies. The total value of the deal is about $360 million.

Freeport-McMoRan Inc. FCX, +1.61%  rose 1.6%, adding to a 16% gain on Wednesday.

KalosBios Pharmaceuticals Inc. KBIO, -5.09%  has received a delisting notice from the Nasdaq exchange.

Other markets: The U.S. oil benchmark CLG6, +1.65%  traded 1.7% higher at $38.11 a barrel. European stocks SXXP, -0.03% were mixed, with some markets closed for the whole day for Christmas Eve. Asian stocks finished mixed, as Chinese shares dropped. Gold GCG6, +0.70%  prices settled higher, up 0.7% to $1,075.90 an ounce, while a key dollar index DXY, -0.51% lost ground.

Source: Market Watch