WALL STREET PARTIES LIKE IT’S 19,999.63
What a tease! The Dow Jones industrial average came within a a fraction of a point of the 20,000point mark early Friday afternoon, just short of the historic milestone as it continued to rally on the strengthening economy and optimism about the Trump presidency.
The blue-chip index reached an intraday high of 19,999.63 — within 0.37 of a point of the millennial milestone — at 12:43 p.m. before pulling back and closing at 19,963.80, its second-highest finish ever.
While the Dow missed its mark, other major averages set records.
The S&P 500, a broader gauge of US companies, closed at 2,276.98, its all-time high. The Nasdaq closed at 5,521.06, also its best-ever close.
Traders took an upbeat view on jobs data released by the government that showed wages rose 2.9 percent in December — the biggest yearon-year gain since 2009 — even as job creation slowed in December.
“The catalyst today was the wages,” Quincy Krosby, a market strategist at Prudential Financial, told The Post. “This report showed wages up, and clearly the market liked that.”
But strong wage growth was tempered by lukewarm job numbers. The unemployment rate rose to 4.7 percent from 4.6 percent.
A shooting in the Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., airport that left at least five dead also spooked the market.
The Dow has soared 9.1 percent, or more than 1,667 points, since Election Day — just 40 trading days ago — on a mix of enthusiasm about the president-elect’s economic and tax policies and an improving housing market, falling unemployment and the rising price of oil.
On Nov. 22, less than two weeks after Trump’s surprise win, the Dow crossed the 19,000 mark for the first time.
Market strategists acknowledged that the 20K milestone is as much a psychological barrier as it was based on market fundamentals.
During the last two weeks of the year, while trading volume was low and there was little market-related news that could have influenced the markets, the Dow stayed within a trading range just below 20,000.
The optimism over Trump’s policies that had driven the markets higher had started to wane as investors wanted to see more specifics on tax reform and deregulation, Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, told The Post at the time. Friday was no smoother. The Dow dropped about 60 points in early-morning trading before rebounding in the late morning.
Goldman Sachs was the Dow’s biggest gainer of the day, rising as much as 1.7 percent in the midafternoon, to $246.05, thanks to a sell-off in government bonds that sent yields higher.
“Financial [stocks] are the direct beneficiary of the higher yield,” Krosby said, since banks base some interest rates, like mortgages, on the yield of government bonds.