What a wonderful year 2024 has been for investors. U.S. stocks ripped higher and carried the S&P 500 to records as the economy kept growing and the Federal Reserve began cutting interest rates. The year featured many familiar winners, such as Big Tech, which got even bigger as their stock prices kept growing. But it wasn't just Apple, Nvidia and the like. Bitcoin, gold and other investments also drove higher. Here's a look at some of the numbers that defined the year. All are as of Dec. 20. Remember when President Bill Clinton got impeached or when baseball's Mark McGwire hit his 70th home run against the Montreal Expos? That was the last time the U.S. stock market closed out a second straight year with a leap of at least 20%, something the S&P 500 is on track to do again this year. The index has climbed 24.3% so far this year, not including dividends, following last year's spurt of 24.2%. The number of all-time highs the S&P 500 has set so far this year. The first came early, on Jan. 19, when the index capped a two-year comeback from the swoon caused by high inflation and worries that high interest rates instituted by the Federal Reserve to combat it would create a recession. But the index was methodical through the rest of the year, setting a record in every month outside of April and August, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. The latest came on Dec. 6. The number of times the Federal Reserve has cut its main interest rate this year from a two-decade high, offering some relief to the economy. Expectations for those cuts, along with hopes for more in 2025, were a big reason the U.S. stock market has been so successful this year. The 1 percentage point of cuts, though, is still short of the 1.5 percentage points that many traders were forecasting for 2024 at the start of the year. The Fed disappointed investors in December when it said it may cut rates just two more times in 2025, fewer than it had earlier expected. RELATED STORY | FBI arrests man charged with planning an attack on the New York Stock Exchange That’s how many points the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by the day after Election Day, as investors made bets on what Donald Trump’s return to the White House will mean for the economy and the world. The more widely followed S&P 500 soared 2.5% for its best day in nearly two years. Aside from bitcoin, stocks of banks and smaller winners were also perceived to be big winners. The bump has since diminished amid worries that Trump’s policies could also send inflation higher. The level that bitcoin topped to set a record above $108,000 this past month. It's been climbing as interest rates come down, and it got a particularly big boost following Trump's election. He's turned around and become a fan of crypto, and he's named a former regulator who’s seen as friendly to digital currencies as the next chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, replacing someone who critics said was overly aggressive in his oversight. Bitcoin was below $17,000 just two years ago following the collapse of crypto exchange FTX. Gold's rise for the year, as it also hit records and had as strong a run as U.S. stocks. Wars around the world have helped drive demand for investments seen as safe, such as gold. It's also benefited from the Fed's cut to interest rates. When bonds are paying less in interest, they pull away fewer potential buyers from gold, which pays investors nothing. It's a favorite number of Elon Musk, and it's also a threshold that Tesla's stock price passed in December as it set a record. The number has a long history among marijuana devotees, and Musk famously said in 2018 that he had secured funding to take Tesla private at $420 per share. Tesla soared this year, up from less than $250 at the start, in part because of expectations that Musk's close relationship with Trump could benefit the company. RELATED STORY | Wealthier Americans are driving retail spending and powering US economy That's how much revenue Nvidia made in the nine months through Oct. 27, showing how the artificial intelligence frenzy is creating mountains of cash. Nvidia's chips are driving much of the move into AI, and its revenue through the last nine months catapulted from less than $39 billion the year before. Such growth has boosted Nvidia's worth to more than $3 trillion in total. GameStop’s gain on May 13 after Keith Gill, better known as “Roaring Kitty,” appeared online for the first time in three years to support the video game retailer’s stock, which he helped rocket to unimaginable heights during the “ meme stock craze ” in 2021. Several other meme stocks also jumped following his post in May on the social platform X, including AMC Entertainment. Gill later disclosed a sizeable stake in the online pet products retailer Chewy, but he sold all of his holdings by late October. That's how much the U.S. economy grew, at annualized seasonally adjusted rates, in each of the three first quarters of this year. Such growth blew past what many pessimists were expecting when inflation was topping 9% in the summer of 2022. The fear was that the medicine prescribed by the Fed to beat high inflation — high interest rates — would create a recession. Households at the lower end of the income spectrum in particular are feeling pain now, as they contend with still-high prices. But the overall economy has remained remarkably resilient. This is the vacancy rate for U.S. office buildings — an all-time high — through the first three quarters of 2024, according to data from Moody's. The fact the rate held steady for most of the year was something of a win for office building owners, given that it had marched up steadily from 16.8% in the fourth quarter of 2019. Demand for office space weakened as the pandemic led to the popularization of remote work. That's the total number of previously occupied homes sold nationally through the first 11 months of 2024. Sales would have to surge 20% year-over-year in December for 2024's home sales to match the 4.09 million existing homes sold in 2023, a nearly 30-year low. The U.S. housing market has been in a sales slump dating back to 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows. A shortage of homes for sale and elevated mortgage rates have discouraged many would-be homebuyers.
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ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. — Maverick McNealy has learned in his five years on the PGA Tour that trying to win a tournament is “designed to make you feel as uncomfortable as you possibly can.” Standing in the 18th fairway Sunday in the RSM Classic, part of a four-way tie for the lead that included Florida State sophomore Luke Clanton, the 29-year-old McNealy had every reason to be uncomfortable.
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Stock indexes closed mixed on Wall Street at the end of a rare bumpy week. The S&P 500 ended little changed Friday. The benchmark index reached its latest in a string of records a week ago. It lost ground for the week following three weeks of gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.2%. The Nasdaq composite edged up 0.1%. Broadcom surged after the semiconductor company beat Wall Street’s profit targets and gave a glowing forecast, highlighting its artificial intelligence products. RH, formerly known as Restoration Hardware, surged after raising its revenue forecast. Treasury yields rose in the bond market. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below. Stocks slipped in afternoon trading Friday as Wall Street closes out a rare bumpy week. The S&P 500 was up by less than 0.1% and is on track for a loss for the week after three straight weekly gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 58 points, or 0.1% to 43,856 as of 3 p.m. Eastern time. The Nasdaq rose 0.1% and is hovering around its record. Broadcom surged 24.9% for the biggest gain in the S&P 500 after the semiconductor company beat Wall Street’s profit targets and gave a glowing forecast, highlighting its artificial intelligence products. The company also raised its dividend. The company's big gain helped cushion the market's broader fall. Pricey stock values for technology companies like Broadcom give the sector more weight in pushing the market higher or lower. Artificial intelligence technology has been a focal point for the technology sector and the overall stock market over the last year. Tech companies, and Wall Street, expect demand for AI to continue driving growth for semiconductor and other technology companies. Even so, some big tech stocks were in the red Friday. Nvidia slid 2.6%, Meta Platforms dropped 1.7% and Netflix was down 0.7%. Furniture and housewares company RH, formerly known as Restoration Hardware, surged 14.2% after raising its forecast for revenue growth for the year. Wall Street's rally stalled this week amid mixed economic reports and ahead of the Federal Reserve's last meeting of the year. The central bank will meet next week and is widely expected to cut interest rates for a third time since September. Expectations of a series of rate cuts has driven the S&P 500 to 57 all-time highs so far this year . The Fed has been lowering its benchmark interest rate following an aggressive rate hiking policy that was meant to tame inflation. It raised rates from near-zero in early 2022 to a two-decade high by the middle of 2023. Inflation eased under pressure from higher interest rates, nearly to the central bank's 2% target. The economy, including consumer spending and employment, held strong despite the squeeze from inflation and high borrowing costs. A slowing job market, though, has helped push a long-awaited reversal of the Fed's policy. Inflation rates have been warming up slightly over the last few months. A report on consumer prices this week showed an increase to 2.7% in November from 2.6% in October. The Fed's preferred measure of inflation, the personal consumption expenditures index, will be released next week. Wall Street expects it to show a 2.5% rise in November, up from 2.3% in October. The economy, though, remains solid heading into 2025 as consumers continue spending and employment remains healthy, said Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY. “Still, the outlook is clouded by unusually high uncertainty surrounding regulatory, immigration, trade and tax policy,” he said. Treasury yields edged higher. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.40% from 4.34% late Thursday. European markets slipped. Britain's FTSE 100 fell 0.1%. Britain’s economy unexpectedly shrank by 0.1% month-on-month in October, following a 0.1% decline in September, according to data from the Office for National Statistics. Asian markets closed mostly lower.Microsoft Weekly: Recall for more devices, non-negotiable Windows 11 requirements, and more
HAMILTON — After a scoreless opener Sunday in the Mercer County Soccer Hall of Fame/Glenn “Mooch” Myernick Senior Games at Al Cowell Field in Veterans Park, the boys wanted to show what they could do offensively. Despite having eight goalkeepers on its side, the White team built a two-goal lead at halftime, only to see the Red side come storming back in the second 40 minutes. It only took eight minutes for the Red team to tie the score, then 10 more before it officially took the lead (after having another goal waved off by an offside call). Before the Reds were finished, they flipped the game on its head to win, 5-2. “We got really motivated from the halftime speech we got from our coaches (namely Mercer County Soccer Hall of Fame president Harold “Bird” Fink),” West Windsor-Plainsboro High South’s Radesh Sankaran said. “We came out and played a lot better in the second half.” After Trenton’s Josh Hernandez had the go-ahead goal wiped out by a linesman’s flag with 30:45 to go, Sankaran came away with the game-winner as he cranked a left-footed shot into the near corner of the net off a pass from Hopewell Valley High’s Andrew Halko with 23:25 left in the second half. That goal put the Red team up, 3-2. Halko’s assist was his second of the half after setting up Princeton High’s Archie Smith 4:30 after intermission. Smith then came back to knot the score just over three minutes later when he bounced in a shot off a lead from the Lawrenceville School’s Brady Le. The turn of events spoiled an inspired first half by the White team in which two of their goalies, who were playing in the field, contributed to their offense. Despite being without its own inspirational Hall of Fame coach, Mickey Forker, who was dealing with a health issue and had to miss the event at the last minute, coach Tony Rosica’s White squad came out smoking. First, Princeton Day School’s ’keeper Oren Yakoby served a corner kick to Allentown’s Scott Jordan 27:30 into the game, and Jordan smoked a head ball past the Red side’s lone ’keeper Nicolas Holmelund from Princeton High. Ten minutes later, Robbinsville goalkeeper Brody Kaplan got into the scoring act when he kicked in a re-direction of a pass from Jordan to double the White side’s lead. “That was pretty fun,” said Kaplan, who, like all eight of the sectional champion Robbinsville and Princeton High boys playing in the game, would have rather been going for another state title at Franklin High Sunday. “Scotty sent a really nice ball to me and, from there, it was pretty easy (to score). In the second half, we were mostly just messing around and having fun.” There was the point of the day, so for both clubs, that was a success. Allentown High goalie J.P. Navroski held the opposition scoreless in the first half by making 10 saves. The second half was a different story after the White side made a change in net. The Red team did not care who was at the line. They were not done scoring. Eight minutes after Sankaran’s goal, his Pirate teammate Animesh Chauhan got into the act, sending a crossing shot past Ewing High goalie Elias Martinez for a 4-2 advantage. After Kaplan teamed with his Ravens teammate Ethan Pagani for a flying kick just over the crossbar, which would have tightened the score with 3:35 to play, the Hun School’s Diego Pena and Notre Dame High’s Luigi Barricelli teamed up to deny Princeton’s Azariah Breitman at the other end 20 seconds later. However, Breitman kept attacking until setting up the final tally with 1:30 left, dropping a slick pass to Lawrence High’s Platon Trofimchuk for the final dagger. White 2 0 — 2 Red 0 5 — 5 Goals: Jordan, Kaplan (W), ASmith 2, Sankaran, AChauhan, Trofimchuk (R); Assists: Yakoby, Jordan (W), Halko 2, Le, Trofimchuk, Breitman (R). Shots: 12 (W), 20 (R); Saves: Holmelund 9 (W), Navroski 10, EMartinez 3, Pena 2 (R).Chiefs could get a star receiver for Christmas: Why there's hope for a Marquise Hollywood comebackThe New York Giants (2-10) enter a matchup against the New Orleans Saints (4-8) on Sunday, December 8, 2024 at MetLife Stadium on a seven-game losing streak. What channel is Saints vs. Giants on? What time is Saints vs. Giants? The Saints and the Giants play at 1 p.m. ET. NFL STATS CENTRAL: The latest NFL scores, schedules, odds, stats and more. Saints vs. Giants betting odds, lines, spread Saints vs. Giants recent matchups Saints schedule Giants schedule NFL week 14 schedule This content was created for Gannett using technology provided by Data Skrive.SAN DIEGO , Nov. 21, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Avidity Biosciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: RNA), a biopharmaceutical company committed to delivering a new class of RNA therapeutics called Antibody Oligonucleotide Conjugates (AOCsTM), today announced that on November 20, 2024, the Human Capital Management Committee of Avidity's Board of Directors granted non-qualified stock option awards to purchase an aggregate of 117,000 shares of its common stock and 58,500 restricted stock units ("RSUs") to twelve (12) new non-executive employees under the Avidity Biosciences, Inc. 2022 Employment Inducement Incentive Award Plan (the "2022 Inducement Plan"). The awards were granted as inducements material to the employees entering into employment with Avidity in accordance with Nasdaq Listing Rule 5635(c)(4). The 2022 Inducement Plan is used exclusively for the grant of equity awards to individuals who were not previously employees of Avidity, or following a bona fide period of non-employment, as an inducement material to such individuals' entering into employment with Avidity, pursuant to Nasdaq Listing Rule 5635(c)(4). The options have an exercise price of $43.65 per share, which is equal to the closing price of Avidity's common stock on The Nasdaq Global Market on November 20, 2024, or the vesting commencement date. The shares subject to the stock options will vest over four years, with 25% of the shares vesting on the one-year anniversary of the vesting commencement date and the balance of the shares vesting in a series of 36 successive equal monthly installments thereafter, subject to each employee's continued employment with Avidity on such vesting dates. The RSUs will vest in four equal installments on the first four anniversaries of the vesting commencement date, subject to each employee's continued employment with Avidity on such vesting dates. The awards are subject to the terms and conditions of the 2022 Inducement Plan and the terms and conditions of a stock option agreement or RSU agreement, as applicable, covering the grant. About Avidity Avidity Biosciences, Inc.'s mission is to profoundly improve people's lives by delivering a new class of RNA therapeutics - Antibody Oligonucleotide Conjugates (AOCsTM). Avidity is revolutionizing the field of RNA with its proprietary AOCs, which are designed to combine the specificity of monoclonal antibodies with the precision of oligonucleotide therapies to address targets and diseases previously unreachable with existing RNA therapies. Utilizing its proprietary AOC platform, Avidity demonstrated the first-ever successful targeted delivery of RNA into muscle and is leading the field with clinical development programs for three rare neuromuscular diseases: myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1), Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD). Avidity is also advancing two wholly-owned precision cardiology development candidates addressing rare genetic cardiomyopathies. In addition, Avidity is broadening the reach of AOCs with its advancing and expanding pipeline including programs in cardiology and immunology through key partnerships. Avidity is headquartered in San Diego, CA. For more information about our AOC platform, clinical development pipeline and people, please visit www.aviditybiosciences.com and engage with us on LinkedIn and X . Investor Contact: Mike MacLean (619) 837-5014 investors@aviditybio.com Media Contact: Navjot Rai (619) 837-5016 media@aviditybio.com View original content to download multimedia: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/avidity-biosciences-announces-inducement-grants-under-nasdaq-listing-rule-5635c4-302313526.html SOURCE Avidity Biosciences, Inc.
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