Stocks finished trading on Friday — the second-to-last session of the "Santa Claus rally" period — with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) leading the major indexes higher to open the new year as investors began to evaluate the 2026 landscape. For the holiday-abbreviated week, the blue-chip Dow led the way up with a gain of 319 points, or 0.66%. The benchmark S&P 500 (^GSPC) picked up 0.2%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) finished just barely below the flatline in a session that saw sev ...