S&P 500 Hits High; Travere Therapeutics, Figure Technology, Palantir In Focus

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0:40Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Stock Market Today on Christmas Eve Day, December, Wednesday, December 24th. My name is Ken Shreve. Today's show, we're going to talk about a day of outperformance for the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Dow ends with a gain of six tenths of a percent, more muted gains in the NASDAQ S &P 500 and Russell 2000. We did get an all-time closing high for the Dow, an all-time closing high for the NYSE composite, and another all-time closing high for the S &P 500. Before we get into today's trading, let me bring in our news editor Ed Carson, who has got three stocks to watch.

1:24Good afternoon, Ed. Yeah. Happy Christmas Eve. I want to take a look at three stocks, Travera Therapeutics, probably the stock of the day, Figure Technology, a recent IPO, and Palantir. Huge move in Travera Therapeutics today. We'll check in on that one in just a little moment, but let's take a look at the market here. Mentioned the Dow Jones outperformed today. Nice close near session highs for the market today on this half day of trading. Let's start with the Dow Jones Industrial Average. I mentioned an all-time closing high for the blue chip index. Not an all-time high, but the Dow Jones up 0.6 % on the session.

2:08NASDAQ Composite not up quite as much. Still trying to break out over that recent high of 23 ,704. The NASDAQ up two-tenths of a percent. Check in on the S &P 500, which hit an all-time closing high yesterday. It did the same again today, up three-tenths of a percent. And check in on that Russell 2000, which has not hit an all-time high yet. Still off of that 2 ,600 level. That edged up two-tenths of a percent. Check in on that equal-weighted RSP, equal-weighted S &P 500 ETF, just off all-time highs. That was up three-tenths of a percent today. And the equal-weighted QQEW, that was up two-tenths of a percent.

3:00Some top-performing S &P 500 sectors today. XLP led the way. That's the consumer staple ETF. That is still on a downtrend. You can see it's stuck below its 200-day moving average. The real estate ETF, that also outperformed also a laggard stuck below its 200-day moving average, XLRE. That was also up 0.7%. And then the communication services, that's got Meta as a big holding. And a good technical setup here, just sitting above that recent high of 1.1761. That was up 0.6%. So, Ed, markets looking pretty good here as we head into the end of the year. The Nasdaq flirting with a breakout and the Dow Jones joining the party with an all-time closing high today.

3:51Market looking pretty strong here and leadership broadening out, not just the magnificent seven anymore. Market looking pretty good here. Yeah, I mean, it was a nice day. I mean, it was a quiet day, a half day. But can't ask for a whole lot more. I mean, the S &P hitting an all-time high in the Dow at a record close, and the other indexes and equal weights are all pretty close. Yeah, it's looking pretty good. There weren't a whole lot of big movers. We're going to look at the big mover today. But a lot of things just sort of did fine. And I think that wasn't necessarily a day for making a whole lot of moves, but probably, you know, I think investors have a lot to be thankful for.

4:28They should be building up. But whatever Santa didn't give him, it doesn't give you tomorrow. I would have your watch list ready, not just for next week, but into 2026. There's a lot of stocks that are setting up acting well. There's no doubt about it. On IBD Live earlier today, we went through a whole bunch of stocks and a whole bunch of different industry groups as well. Tech, biotech, you name it. Lots of different industry groups. So sponsored by Wellington Management, one of the world's largest investment managers. You might not know Wellington, but your clients' portfolios probably do. If you're a financial advisor who serves high net worth clients, get to know Wellington.

5:10Visit Wellington dot com slash USA wealth. Why don't we get right into it? Because the big breakout today came from a biotech called Travere Therapeutics. T-V-T-X is the symbol here. volume really exploded in this name more than 400 percent above average here you can see the how volume exploded this is stock that normally trades 1.8 million shares a day and you can see volume really exploded nice technical breakout here from a sideways consolidation and stock was up 16 % today. Yeah, it was really impressive action. I mean, it was not clear what drove it, but this had been trading tightly around the 21-day line for some time, and it's a blast out of this short consolidation.

6:03You can sort of treat this whole area as almost a flat base. It has powerful fundamentals. It's been turning profitable very recently. It's supposed to be profitable for the full year next year revenue growth i mean that's really strong revenue growth it's becoming much more meaningful now a lot to like about this name rs line hitting a new high it's now extended i think now at this point it's extended you could have stretched for it i mean honestly you were asking about this early on and i was like ah it seems a little stressed boy boy kept on stretching and uh so i mean it would have been at that point so it's it's acting great you You know, this is why you need to have a watch list ahead of time.

6:44I mean, you could have chosen, like myself, to pass on it, you know, and be regretful. But you want to have these things so you're aware of them. So when these things pop up, you can think, I want to make a decision on this. Very, very strong name and one that we may be talking about for many times in the future. Losing a lot of money, as biotechs are prone to do. But you can see 2026 expected to earn its first profit of 79 cents a share. It has been deriving revenue for quite some time here. And you can see revenue growth has really exploded in recent quarters. So nice technical breakout today for Trovere Therapeutics, TBTX.

7:27And we really have been seeing broad-based strength in the biotech group for several months now. The group has risen all the way up to number two out of 197 groups ranked by Investors Business Daily based on six-month price performance. Here's another interesting company outside of the biotech sector. This is a company called Figure Technology Solutions, a company that came public not that long ago in September. Tends to trade in volatile fashion, but another company with exceptional fundamentals, ticker FIGR. This is a blockchain lender. Definitely is something new, Ed, has the new going on, a new product or service that is driving some pretty strong revenue growth and strong earnings growth as well.

8:18Tell us about figure technology solutions. Yeah, I mean, it's just an interesting IPO. It had a base. It broke out, but that quickly failed. Now, there were things going on in the market. I mean, that big drop, I think, was on that ugly October 10th day, but it didn't stop. It kept on falling. Let's be clear. It didn't recover. And it tried coming back. It fell back. Will it do that again? I don't know. I mean, there probably was a downward sloping trend line from the top of the base that you could have done. But right around that level, I mean, I think, yeah, I think, you know, If you get somewhere around the 46 area, that's also where the old IPO-based buy point was.

8:56So a handle around here or around this area would be really nice. A nice tightening up would be nice. If you could use the week after Christmas, as it were, to sort of like have a relatively calm session, I think that would be nice to see. But strong growth, you definitely want to be paying attention. You want to buy this right. It'd be nice if they were – because you don't want to buy it too far extended. We just have the 10-week line for only a few weeks now, and it is considerably above that. So again, a handle would provide a little bit of time of rest, a little bit more of a clear buy point.

9:29But I just wanted to bring this up. And we were looking at a lot of the names, and there's a lot of breadth out there, a lot of sectors. And I just think this is an interesting name. We looked at it a few weeks ago. Maybe it's coming back, and we'll have to see. Well, one of the things that IBD Research has consistently found that new issues, recent IPOs with outstanding fundamentals that have a new product, new service, are definitely worth paying attention to because we like companies that are in the early stages of growth. Interesting thing here too, Ed, is that the founder of FIGR is the former CEO of SoFi.

10:08This is a fintech that has got a CEO of a pretty strong fintech, SoFi technology. And again, there's a pretty compelling growth story here, Figure Technology Solutions. Their specialty is apparently home equity lines of credit, but their specialty is blockchain lending. So not a lot of companies doing what FigureTech does, and they are generating meaningful revenue at this point and starting to turn profitable as well. So interesting name to watch in the fintech space, F-I-G-R. And then a name on a lot of people's radar here, still trying to break out, Palantir in the Computer Software Enterprise Group, a name that joined the leaderboard model portfolio when it broke out just a few days ago.

11:04Hasn't made much progress from the breakout, but it is trading very tightly and holding in a buy zone, PLTR. Yeah, you could buy it here or just see if it shows any more strength. And again, this is just one, just trying to provide a mix here. It's had quarter after quarter of accelerating revenue growth, a couple of quarters now of accelerating earnings growth. So it is richly valued. May be perfectly clear. It is very richly valued. So if the growth ever slowed down, you could see a real doozy of a drop, I could imagine. But it keeps on delivering. I mean, there's a reason why this is the best stock of 2024 and one of the very best stocks of 2025.

11:45So it's set up again. It's showing real strength. And, you know, a couple of things that there have been, if you look in the volume, There's some of the volume bars. There's volume on the downside to some extent. Sometimes on the daily, it looks a little better that there's some support there. But there's no doubt that there has been some selling in there as well. So that is something to note. But yeah, I mean, it's hard not to take a look at this one. It keeps on delivering with these really strong growth numbers in that AI front. It's in the civilian and defense areas. Just a lot of growth things going right for them.

12:23Yeah, Palantir, arguably, you know, obviously you mentioned a high multiple stock, but still growing like gangbusters. And a lot of people arguing that this company still is in the early stages of growth. And you can see the growth runway still looking very strong for Palantir as they continue to generate new business. The group itself not doing very well as a lot of software stocks have come under selling pressure. But Palantir is sort of a shining star in a group that has come under, generally has come under a lot of selling pressure. So, all right. Well, folks, the stock market will be closed tomorrow for the Christmas holiday.

13:13But we will be back Monday, excuse me, Friday for a full day of trading. and I believe Webby will be back with the stock market. The schedule may be slightly different. I'm not sure if Justin is going to be back from vacation, but there will be a stock market today video Friday with Webby and possibly Justin. I'm just not sure if he's going to be back from vacation, but we will have a stock market today video. I want to wish everybody a very Merry Christmas tomorrow. Thanks very much for watching today. And thank you very much for your input. I want to wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas as well.

13:56All right. Thanks a lot. That'll do it for today, folks. And appreciate you watching. And once again, wishing everybody a very, very Merry Christmas. And we will see you back here on Friday. Have a great rest of the day. And we will see you back here on Friday. Take care.

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