NEW YORK, Dec 25 — Global stocks mostly pushed higher yesterday in thin Christmas Eve trade, as investors waited to see if a so-called Santa Claus rally would sweep the market.

"Santa Claus comes tonight, but if stock market participants are lucky, he will start sprinkling some gifts today, which marks the official start to the ‘Santa Claus rally’ period,” said Briefing.com analyst Patrick O’Hare.

US stock markets have traditionally fared well in the last five trading days of the year and the first two in the new year, with experts advancing a number of possible reasons as to why — including the festive holiday mood and purchasing ahead of the end of the tax year.

Wall Street opened modestly higher on the first day of this seven-day stretch and picked up speed as the session progressed. The S&P 500 finished up 1.1 per cent.

While gains were broad-based, some of the biggest positive moves came from tech heavyweights like Facebook parent Meta, Netflix and Amazon, all of which won more than one per cent.

"There’s a pretty fair amount of enthusiasm for momentum” stocks, said Jack Ablin, of Cresset Capital, who also noted that low trading volumes amplified the trend.

In Europe, Paris’s CAC 40 closed higher in a pre-holiday short session while Frankfurt was closed all day.

London also closed in the green, despite a week clouded by lackluster economic data that is "stoking concerns about the UK’s slowing momentum heading into the new year,” said Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

Hong Kong and Shanghai stock markets closed up over one per cent, as China announced fresh fiscal measures to boost its ailing economy.

Yesterday, state media reported that China will raise its deficit in order to boost spending next year, as the world’s second-largest economy battles sluggish domestic consumption, a property crisis and soaring government debt.

Among individual companies, Honda shares closed more than 12 per cent higher after the Japanese auto giant announced a buyback of up to ¥1.1 trillion (RM31 billion), as it enters merger talks with struggling rival Nissan.

The talks between Honda and Nissan could create the world’s third-largest automaker, expanding development of EVs and self-driving tech.

Honda’s CEO insisted it was not a bailout for Nissan, which announced thousands of job cuts last month and reported a 93 per cent plunge in first-half net profit. — AFP