EDITOR'S NOTE
The S&P 500 on Wednesday posted its 70th record close of 2021, bringing its year-to-date return to 27.6%. The benchmark index has closed at a high 28% of the time this year.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average also notched a record close — its latest since November — and rose for a sixth straight day.
“The equity market has been throwing a pretty good party for the last three months and really all year long,” Wells Fargo Investment Institute’s Scott Wren said in a note Wednesday. “It appears the rally could very well put the S&P 500 at, or at least very near, an all-time record high as we close out the year.” 
The tech-heavy Nasdaq bucked the trend and dipped 0.1%. Higher-growth technology stocks struggled as the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield surged above 1.5%. Rising rates discount the value of future earnings and therefore can hit growth stocks particularly hard.
There are two trading sessions left in 2021. Historically, the market rises during the “Santa Claus rally” period — the last five trading days of December and the first two of January.
The S&P 500 since 1928 has returned about 1.7% on average during the Santa Claus rally period.
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