NEW YORK — U.S. stocks posted some gains in light trading Friday, led by gains in energy shares as crude-oil prices advanced, while retailers were in focus as post-Christmas sales kicked off in earnest.
Inc. said Friday that the 2008 holiday season finished as its best ever.
However, an early survey of the retail sector pointed to a dismal Christmas shopping season.
“We’re not getting good numbers on the retail side, but when the market shrugs off bad news, that’s good news,” said Paul Mendelsohn, chief investment strategist at Windham Financial Services. “A lot of this bad news is already built into this market, and people are trying to find a light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 47 points to 8,515, with 17 of its 30 components gaining ground, led by the likes of Alcoa, Exxon Mobil and Coca Cola.
Shares of General Motors led the gains among blue chips, rising 13 percent. The Federal Reserve approved the request by its finance arm, GMAC, to become a bank holding company and be eligible for financing under the U.S. Treasury Department’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program.
The S&P 500 rose 7.4 points to 872, while the Nasdaq composite advanced 5.3 points to 1,530.
The energy sector led the gains on the S&P, rising 2 percent, as crude-oil prices recovered some ground after sliding 33 percent this month.
With the end of the tax year approaching, a lot of selling over the past few weeks has affected some of the hardest-hit sectors of the market this year, such as financials and energy, as investors ditch losing positions to declare a tax loss, according to Mendelsohn.
But some buying is also seen as investors try to gauge which sectors might have been beaten down too hard. “To a large degree, (trading) action is driven by window-dressing and setting up positions for next year,” Mendelsohn said.
Among other gaining sectors Friday were telecoms, up 2 percent, and materials, up 1.8 percent.
“There has also been a lot of tax-loss selling over the past couple of weeks,” he said. “As we get closer to the end of the year, people done with their tax loss selling may not want to remain short for too long in some sectors such as energy.”
Year to date, the Dow industrials have lost 32 percent, the S&P 500 — heavily weighed by financials — is down 41 percent, and the Nasdaq is down 42 percent.
Total retail sales dropped 5.5 percent to 8 percent for November and December, according to MasterCard Inc.’s SpendingPulse unit. The 40 percent drop in the price of gasoline compared with December 2007 accounts for almost half of the decline. Excluding gasoline, total sales were down 2 percent to 4 percent this holiday season compared with the same period in 2007.
“A difficult economic environment combined with unfavorable weather during the last week of shopping made 2008 one of the most challenging holiday shopping seasons in decades,” the survey said.
