Chart of the Day - Thursday, December 30th, 2021

Today’s Chart of the Day was shared in a note by Jeff Hirsch (@AlmanacTrader). The table shows the performance of the four major indices on the last trading day of the year over the past two decades. Jeff points out that the last trading day of the year (tomorrow) has historically been the worst-performing day within the 7-day Santa Claus Rally. The Nasdaq and the Russell 2000 have performed the worst, closing higher less than a third of the time. The Dow and S&P have fared slightly better, but they've still closed lower the majority of the time. While average returns were negative across the board, they really weren't that bad. One day in the grand scheme of things is pretty insignificant, so we shouldn't read too far into this. But it will be interesting to see whether or not recent history repeats itself tomorrow. Click here to read the full note.