Stocks May Be Mixed to Wrap the Year That Commodities Dominated

The S&P 500’s (SPX) fight for 2015 gains continues. The bullish spirit took hold in Tuesday’s session, driving the SPX to a 0.8% gain for the year, but the stock market is having trouble with momentum this week—a lower open is expected for Wednesday, again largely at the mercy of oil’s move.

The year that many commodities traders may want to just end already has two trading days remaining. Markets are closed on Friday for New Years. So with the clock ticking, the Dow Jones Industrial Average ($DJI) is down 0.6% in the year to date, while the tech-heavy NASDAQ Composite (COMP) is up 7.9%.

Holiday-thinned volume could continue to skew broad-market direction. Instead, traders may want to focus sector-by-sector and name-by-name for potential signals of stock demand in early 2016. Look for solid volume to potentially confirm staying power in select stocks. But impact could also be felt from sellers looking to lock in profits or harvest losses for tax purposes.

Some Happy Investors? Even as broad stock averages wait for their yearly result to sort out, two big movers captured the market’s attention this year. It was a record-breaking 2015 for Amazon.com AMZN and Google parent Alphabet GOOGL GOOG). The action leads some to speculate that they’ll be the next tech names to join the blue-chip DJIA. On Tuesday, AMZN, up some 125% this year, hit $696.44 at one point and closed at $693.97 to top its Dec. 1 closing record of $679.06. GOOGL, up some 45% year to date, traded as high as $798.69 Tuesday.

New Year’s Cheer? International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde wrote a guest column for Germany’s Handelsblatt newspaper. In it, she warned that global economic growth will be “disappointing and uneven in 2016.”