The Dow closed slightly higher on Thursday while the Nasdaq and S&P 500 closed lower in the second day of a so-called Santa Claus rally period.

The so-called Santa Claus rally could get off to a late start this year. But better late than never. A team of strategists at Ned Davis Research pointed out that stocks have struggled ahead of the start of the “Santa Claus rally” period, which begins on Tuesday.

According to the latest Labor Department data, weekly jobless claims fell to 219,000 compared with expectations of 223,000. However continuing claims pointed to a cooling labor market, jumping by 46,000 in the week ending Dec. 14 to 1.91 million, the highest level since November 2021.

Some of the biggest winners were mega-cap tech stocks, with Tesla up by 6% while Broadcom, Netflix, and Amazon each gained about 2%.

An “almost light-switch moment” at the start of December sparked a “breakdown in breadth” this month in the U.S. stock market, following a strong rally in November, said Mark Hackett, chief market strategist at Nationwide, in a phone interview.

Stock indexes drifted to a mixed finish on Wall Street as some heavyweight technology and communications sector stocks offset gains elsewhere in the market. The S&P 500 slipped less than

U.S. stocks on Thursday struggled for momentum and eventually ended mixed, putting Wall Street's attempt to continue a Santa Claus rally under pressure after the best Christmas Eve session since 1974.