Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on December 31, 2024, in New York City, on the last day of trading this year.
Spencer Pratt | Getty Images
Virtual currency trading is skyrocketing. Rolling Kitty boosts meme stocks. Broad markets are being eaten away with no obvious catalyst.
At the dawn of trade in 2025, animal spirits are on the loose.
Many stock market speculators soared in early trading on the first Thursday of the new year, just after the S&P 500 posted its best two-year performance since 1998.
Stock prices related to the price of Bitcoin soared as Bitcoin rose above $96,000. MicroStrategy added 4% pre-market after gaining over 360% in 2024. Cryptocurrency companies Coinbase, Robinhood, Mara Holdings, and Riot Platforms also rose after strong growth in 2024.
Elsewhere, retail traders active on social media engaged in a guessing game after online personality Roaring Kitty posted another cryptic message to X featuring a short clip of the late musician Rick James. was. While some believe the meme stock leader was referring to Unity Software, whose stock price soared 10% in the premarket, he may also be promoting his original favorite GameStop, whose stock price also sold in the premarket. Some people think that there is.
Meanwhile, semiconductor stocks, the big winners of 2024, helped lead the market again after artificial intelligence trading lost momentum late last year. Broadcom rose 2% on Thursday, and Nvidia rose 1.6%.
Additionally, top golf stock Callaway Brands rose 8.5% after Jefferies upgraded the stock from hold to buy. The investment bank said it believed the golf equipment maker’s stock price was oversold and raised its price target by 65% from the year-end closing price.
In response to heightened market speculation, stock futures across the board rose for the start of 2025, with Dow futures rising as much as 300 points. S&P 500 futures rose 0.8% and Nasdaq 100 futures rose 1%.
Thursday’s dramatic move came against the backdrop of Donald Trump’s victory in the November election, as investors bet that his pro-business policies would lead businesses and the economy to strong growth. It was similar to the first meeting. These increases are likely to continue toward the end of 2024 as concerns grow that the president-elect’s protectionist policies could spur inflation or disrupt the chain, and the Federal Reserve signaled that it would reduce interest rate cuts in 2025. Slowed down.
“Many investors believe that the incoming administration’s push for deregulation will unleash ‘animal spirits,'” Lisa Charette, chief investment officer at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, said in a recent client note. I mentioned it in my notes. “But what if it only accelerates the concentration of monopoly power in the hands of a few, weakening the effectiveness of broader economic measures and leaving even more of the masses behind?”
