Tuesday's Stock Market Close: US Equities Finish Narrowly Mixed On Thin Christmas Eve Trading

U.S. equities were mixed at the close Tuesday, with only the Nasdaq extending a three-day record-setting streak, as most traders stayed on the sidelines ahead of Christmas Eve.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 35.78 points to 28,515.77 while the S&P 500 edged down 0.64 of a point to 3,223.37 and the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 7.24 points to 8,952.88.

Volume on the New York Stock Exchange totaled 1.09 billion shares with 1,632 issues advancing, 131 setting new highs, and 1,262 declining, with 5 setting new lows.

Active movers were led by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), NIO Inc. (NIO) and Aurora Cannabis Inc. (ACB).

U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday he and Chinese President Xi Jinping will hold a ceremony to sign the first phase U.S.-China trade deal.

“We will be having a signing ceremony, yes,” Trump told reporters. “We will ultimately, yes, when we get together. And we’ll be having a quicker signing because we want to get it done. The deal is done, it’s just being translated right now.”

The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Manufacturing Index weakened to negative-5 in December from negative-1 in November. The market had expected a rise to 9.

The Fed said the index was “weighed down by decreases in the already negative indexes for shipments and new orders, while the third component, employment, increased slightly."

Edward Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda, wrote in a Tuesday research note that trading volumes will be thin this whole week as many Wall Street workers will take the rest of the week off.

Julian Emanuel, managing director and chief equity and derivatives strategist at BTIG, thinks the stock market will soar next year, predicting a 22% gain for the S&P 500.

“We think confidence will ultimately translate into the public getting this enthusiasm for stocks, which could cause [S&P 500] prices to move as high as 3,950,” he told CNBC on Monday.

But Adam Crisafulli, founder of Vital Knowledge, warned in a note that when investors return in January they will “find a complacent market trading at very elevated multiples and harboring unrealistically optimistic expectations about an upward inflection in growth/earnings momentum.”

Overnight in Asia, markets finished mixed. The Hang Seng fell 0.15% while Japan’s Nikkei-225 edged up 0.04% and China’s Shanghai Composite rose 0.67%.

In Europe the FTSE 100 rose 0.11% while France's CAC 40 was flat. Germany's DAX was closed Tuesday.

Crude oil futures rose 0.79% at $61 per barrel and Brent crude gained 0.98% at $66.06. Gold futures gained 1.03%.

The euro slipped 0.02% at $1.1087 while the pound sterling rose 0.25% at $1.2967.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury dropped 1.09% to 1.914% while yield on the 30-year Treasury slipped 0.8% to 2.344%.