The S&P 500 is climbing toward its first gain since Christmas. The main gauge of Wall Street’s health rose 1.3% Friday and was on track to break a five-day losing streak, its longest since April.

The last time the stock market saw three consecutive years of gains over 20% was during the dot-com boom of the late 1990's.

A soft finish to 2024 still left stocks with a second straight stellar year. The S&P 500 logged a 23.3% gain, which follows a 24% rise in 2023. The combined gains of more than 53% was the largest two-year percentage jump for the index since year-end 1998,