kriss kringle showed up on wall street after all delivering a modest “santa claus rally” that investors hope will keep bears at bay the phenomenon popularized by the stock trader’s almanac in the early 1970s refers to a tendency for the sp 500 spx to rally in the last 5 trading days of the calendar year and the first two trading days of the new year a failure to rally in that stretch is seen by some analysts as a signal for more rough sledding ahead “if santa claus should fail to call bears may come to broad and wall” is the oftquoted phrase from the late yale hirsch founder of the stock trader’s almanac bears of course were already in abundance this time around a bear market for the sp 500 began a year ago tuesday as the index began a slide from its jan 3 2021 record close this time around the period ran from dec 23 through wednesday jan 4 stocks saw a shaky performance over that stretch but a wednesday bounce saw the sp 500 end the period with a gain of 08 over the santa stretch extending a streak of such seasonal gains to a seventh year according to dow jones market data that was below the average rise of around 13 over the period outside the sp 500 the dow jones industrial average djia rose 07 in the period while the nasdaq composite comp shed 017 and the smallcap russell 2000 rut gained 105