The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P500 carved out fresh record intra-day and closing highs to conclude a volatile 2020 that marked both the end of the longest bull market and the shortest-lived bear market ever - Dow gained +197-points or +0.65% to 30,606.48, with Intel Corp (up +2.2%) the leading Dow constituent on the final trading day of 2020. The broader S&P500 rose +0.64% to 3,756.07, with the Financials and Utilities advancing more than >1% each to be the leading primary sector performers last Thursday (31 December). Exxon Mobil Corp fell -0.9% after the energy giant said it expects higher oil and gas and chemical prices to boost fourth-quarter earnings, but confirmed that it is also expecting to write down US$18B to US$20B of upstream assets. Exxon Mobil’s shares declined more than >40% in 2020. Tesla Inc released fourth-quarter delivery figures on Saturday (2 January), with electric vehicle maker recording it delivered 180,570 vehicles in the fourth quarter of 2020 - a quarterly record for deliveries, ahead of consensus analyst projections of ~176K and up about 60% compared from the fourth quarter of 2019. For the full year, Tesla delivered ~499K vehicles, just short of initial management projections of 500K vehicles albeit the initial projections were before COVID-19 impacted the entire auto industry. Tesla 2020 vehicle deliveries grew ~36% compared with the full year 2019, despite pandemic, lock downs and production disruptions. Tesla stock’s +743% gain in 2020 leaves the company worth ~US$669B (having started last year with a market capitalisation of ~US$76B) - and almost US$780B on a fully diluted basis. The Nasdaq edged +0.14% higher. The small capitalisation Russell 2000 index slipped -0.26%.
