Santa Claus Rally: Wall Street’s Holiday Boost?

James Sterling December 21, 2025 1 min read

Wall Street Brunch: Will Santa Come To Wall Street?

It’s the most wonderful time of the year for stock market bulls. Here comes Santa Claus right down Maiden Lane, then left on Nassau heading straight for Wall and Broad.

The Santa Claus Rally—the last five trading days of December and the first two of January—is set to kick off Wednesday, with markets closing early for Christmas Eve and shut on Thursday for Christmas.

Historically, the S&P 500 has been higher 77% of the time during the Santa Rally, according to Subu Trade. They note the last two were negative—but there’s never been a third straight down Santa Rally.

Alexander Guiliano, CIO at Resonate Wealth Partners, says despite choppy trading over the past six weeks, the backdrop remains strong, and the recent valuation pullback is creating opportunities for under-invested bulls.

So far in December, the S&P is slightly lower, the Nasdaq is down about 0.25%, and the Dow is up 1%.

The earnings calendar is light, but traders won’t be bored. The key data point is the Q3 GDP report on Tuesday. Wells Fargo says while the headline number may be stale, the details matter.

They’re expecting 3.6% annualized growth, boosted by a pullback in imports. Consumers rebounded strongly in the second half, though construction remains a drag.

In the news this weekend, Bill Ackman floated a novel idea for taking SpaceX public, pitching a merger with Pershing Square SPARC that would distribute special investment rights to Tesla shareholders, giving them first crack at a SpaceX IPO—or the option to sell those rights. Ackman called it a way to “democratize” the IPO process.

Out west, power was restored to most of San Francisco late Saturday after a major outage. Roughly 130,000 customers lost service at the peak, with most restored by late evening.

For income investors, Broadcom (AVGO) and Vistra Energy (VST) go ex-dividend on Monday. Both pay out on New Year’s Eve.

Altria (MO) and Philip Morris (PM) go ex-dividend on Friday. Altria has a Jan. 9 payout date and Philip Morris pays out on Jan. 14.