The Major Markets ended the last full trading week of the year mixed. The S&P 500 ended the week only slightly higher, barely gaining a tenth of a percent. For the Nasdaq Composite, the 0.5% gains were in large part due to some late-week strength in technology.

The uncertainty around Broadcom and Oracle carried over from the prior week into last week . However, Micron Technologies helped provide investors with some more confidence in the AI trade after the company saw a 22% surprise in their quarterly earnings release.

Energy saw the biggest decline last week as the sector lost nearly 3%. Both Crude Oil and Natural Gas saw declines last week as they gave back 1.19% and 3.68% respectively. This has pulled back the year to date returns for these commodities indices as Crude is down 9.2% and Natural Gas is down 21.3%.

As people travel this week for the holidays, drivers should also celebrate lower gasoline prices. AAA reported that not only will a record number of travelers be on the road, but that current national average gasoline prices are at the lowest lever since December of 2020.

With that, we’d like to wish you safe and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.