Stocks dip on final trading day of bouceback year for Wall Street

Stocks closed out 2023 with a whimper, but Wall Street has little to whine about after a strong rebound year for the market.

The S&P 500 index closed Friday with a loss of 0.2 percent after opening the final trading day of the year 0.5 percentage points from a new all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.1 percentage points after notching new record highs earlier in the month, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.4 percentage points.

The slight Friday selloff ended an otherwise stellar 2023 for the stock market, which roared back after a year of deep losses. Stocks slid throughout 2022 as the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate hikes and stubborn inflation fueled fears of a recession in 2023.

But stocks rallied back after the recession failed to materialize and the U.S. economy held strong amid the pressure of higher interest rates.

The Dow Jones ended 2023 up 13.7 percent, while the S&P 500 closed out with a 24.4 percent gain and a boom in artificial intelligence (AI) investment fueled the tech-heavy Nasdaq to a staggering 43.6 percent gain.