The S&P 500 set its 69th year-end closing record on Monday, closing 1.4% higher at 4,791. Tech giant

Apple

(ticker: AAPL) rose 2.3% to $ 180.33 and closed at its 24th all-time high. The stock moved closer to a valuation of $ 3 trillion.

The record for Apple, however, came the same day the company announced it was closing its New York City stores to shoppers after a Covid-19 spike. New York stores remain open for pickup only.

An increase in the highly contagious Omicron variant of Covid-19 has pushed global cases of the virus to a daily record high, according to a report by Bloomberg. In total, more than 281 million people worldwide have been infected with Covid-19 since the pandemic was declared in March 2020, while 5.4 million people have died, according to data from Johns University Hopkins.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has shortened the recommended isolation period for people with Covid-19 to five days from 10 if they are asymptomatic, followed by five days of wearing a mask around others.

Brian Vendig, chairman of MJP Wealth Advisors, a Westport, Connecticut-based wealth management firm, said Monday’s Wall Street gains suggest the market is “confident that we can overcome the short-term challenges of the Omicron variant “.

He said light trading volumes and retail investors could support stock gains in the final trading sessions of the year, the period between Christmas and New Years when Wall Street often experiences a “rally. of Father Christmas “.

Vendig said the market target in 2021 would largely stay the same next year, with investors continuing to monitor “the trajectory of the pandemic, supply chain issues, inflation and how the Federal Reserve plans to shape policy “.

He doesn’t expect the stock market to perform as well next year as it does 2021. The S&P 500 has risen 27.6% this year.

Write to Joe Woelfel at [email protected]