The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 1,086 points up — a nearly 5% gain — on Wednesday, the index's largest single-day point gain in history. The Nasdaq finished up 5.84% and the S&P 500 up 4.96%.
Why it matters, per Axios' Felix Salmon: Stock market volatility is the new normal. All three of the United States' major stock indices easily erased their losses from Monday, which was their worst Christmas Eve on record.
Holiday sales in the United States hit their highest mark in six years at more than $850 billion, Reuters reports.
By the numbers: The $850 billion mark is a 5.1% increase in year-over-year sales with retail giants like Amazon having record breaking years. The National Retail Federation originally forecast retail sales to rise between 4.3% and 4.8% in November and December, but consumer confidence and low unemployment numbers triggered a rise.
Box office hits including Marvel Studios’ “Black Panther,” Universal Pictures’ “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” and 20th Century Fox's "Deadpool 2" drove ticket sales up 6% in the U.S. and Canada to a record-breaking $11.8 billion in 2018, according to preliminary data from Comscore, the L.A. Times' Ryan Faughnder reports.
Why it matters: The projections align with the success the box office has seen all year, disproving a continuing theme that the movie theater industry in Hollywood is being killed by streaming giants like Netflix.
About 85% of all stock trading has become automatic through machines, models or algorithms, "creating an unprecedented trading herd that moves in unison and is blazingly fast," The Wall Street Journal reports.
Why it matters: Computerized trading grew up "during the long bull run, and hasn’t until now been seriously tested by a prolonged downturn." Monday was the worst Christmas Eve for the Dow Jones Industrial Average in its history.
Raise a glass of Christmas cheer: We’re now, officially, in the best possible kind of bear market.
The big picture: For a few years now, the U.S. economy has been at full employment, which means that most people looking for a job can find one. (There is, of course, some skill mismatching. And some jobs are under-employing.) The next step of the American Dream, after you get a job, is accumulating wealth, often by investing in stocks. Now, for the first time in a decade, stocks are on sale: They can be bought at a 20% discount to where they were trading just a few months ago.
Japanese stocks took a dive on Tuesday, a day after the Dow had its worst Christmas Eve ever, and benchmarks in Thailand and Taiwan were down as well, AP reports.
Why it matters: This is not just a problem for U.S. markets, and it doesn't bode well for when they reopen — or for other world markets. (Markets in Europe, Australia, Hong Kong and South Korea were also closed for Christmas, per AP.)
"It's a Wonderful Life" is the most popular Christmas movie in America, but that's mainly because the over-35 crowd likes it, according to an Axios/SurveyMonkey poll. "Home Alone" is way more popular with teens and young adults.
Between the lines: "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and "Elf" are more popular among the younger set. "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" has one specific audience: boomers and Gen-Xers who know who Chevy Chase is. And the big lesson: not enough people have seen "Die Hard."
