A specialist trader works at his post on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange.

Brendan McDermid | Reuters

Having fallen three straight sessions entering the final day of trading, the S&P 500 is trying to avoid its first four-day losing streak to close out a year since 1966.

Despite going out 2024 with a whimper, the S&P 500 is still poised for a 24% gain for the second straight year. Consecutive gains of 20% or more are extremely rare. It has only happened three other times for the S&P 500: 1935-56, 1954-55 and 1996-98 (the only time it saw 20% gains three years in a row).

Here's another sign that the S&P 500's gains have been very top-heavy this year, primarily thanks to the tremendous outperformance from big cap techs. Only about one-fourth of the S&P 500 is up 24% or more in 2024 (24% being the index's gain this year).

Meanwhile, in terms of overall breadth, two-thirds of the index is up this year, leaving one-third in the red.

— Robert Hum

Stocks had a rough December — and only a handful of tech stocks bucked the trend.

The S&P 500 declined about 1.8% this month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 4.9%, meanwhile, and only the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite managed to finish higher, rising about 1.4% month-to-date.

Most stocks in the S&P 500 ended the month in the red, with only a few more than 60 names in the broad-market index managing to come out higher.

Broadcom, Tesla and Lululemon were the top gainers, respectively. Broadcom gained a whopping 44% this month alone, while Tesla gained more than 21.5%. Megacap tech stocks Alphabet, Amazon and Apple also ended higher. Outside of technology, Boeing, Ulta Beauty and Darden Restaurants raked in gains in December.

Texas Pacific Land, CVS Health, UnitedHealth and Omnicom Group were among the biggest losers. So were several homebuilders, including Lennar, Builders FirstSource and Pultegroup.

— Pia Singh

Investors shouldn't be worried about Palantir Technologies' current valuation levels, according to Wedbush's Dan Ives.

As it stands, the stock has a forward price-to-sales ratio of around 50, per data from FactSet. It has also soared around 346% year to date. But Ives thinks the stock could have even more room to run.

"It's not about in the next year in terms of what this thing is trading at," the analyst told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" on Tuesday. "I view it as: Can Palantir be the next Oracle, the next Salesforce? If that's true – and I believe that's true – then this is a name that goes much higher from here."

"That's why you've got to focus on [artificial intelligence platform] as they prove out these sort of enterprise use cases and can this be something that expands to ultimately 30% [or] 40% of its overall revenue. I think that's the key," he continued. "This is a stock that has potential to be three digits and higher."

PLTR, year-to-date

Market breadth appeared solid in early trading Tuesday, a welcome change for investors after narrow leadership over the past few weeks.

Shortly before 10 am, advancing stocks on the New York Stock Exchange outpaced declining stocks by a ratio of more than three-to-one, according to FactSet. On the Nasdaq, the advantage was nearly two-to-one.

Meanwhile, just five of the 30 stocks in the Dow were negative.

— Jesse Pound

Wall Street might not close 2024 exactly at record highs, but there have been plenty of milestones throughout the year.

Through Monday's close, there have been 57 record closes for the S&P in 2024, 47 for the Dow and 38 for the Nasdaq Composite.

The Nasdaq, which has the most exposure to the AI trade of the three averages, is now up 86% over the past two years. That's its best two-year stretch since 2019 and 2020.

— Jesse Pound, Gina Francolla

Trading started off on a positive note Tuesday, with all three major averages opening in positive territory. The Dow rose 123 points, or 0.3%. The Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 saw similar gains.

— Jesse Pound

Check out the stocks making moves in the premarket:

• Crypto stocks – Stocks tied to the price of bitcoin gained as the cryptocurrency inched higher on Tuesday. Bitcoin proxy MicroStrategy advanced nearly 5%, while crypto services provider Coinbase rose more than 2%. Miners Mara Holdings and Riot Platforms also each moved more than 2% higher.
• VeriSign – The internet stock jumped more than 3% in premarket trading after a regulatory filing revealed that Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway bought more shares in the company. The conglomerate added 76,487 more shares of Verisign over the past three trading days for 15.6 million. The firm also purchased the stock in the prior week.
• Sangamo Therapeutics – Shares of Sangamo Therapeutics plunged more than 54% after the company said its partner Pfizer ended their hemophilia A gene therapy co-development agreement, delaying the prospects of bringing the development to market. Sangamo now has the rights to the product and said it will explore options to advance it. Pfizer shares were 0.3% higher, meanwhile.

Read the full list here.

— Sean Conlon

A weak December for stocks has coincided with the back-end of the Treasury curve climbing. The move in rates, due in part to changing expectations around Federal Reserve rate cuts, could be hurting optimism for stocks.

"The one risk out there is that the 10-year and the 30-year are hovering at levels that make people uncomfortable if they break down from here," Tom Sosnoff, founder and CEO of retail trading platform Tastylive, said on "Squawk Box." Retail investors appear to be long on stocks currently, Sosnoff added.

The 10-year Treasury yield was down slightly on Tuesday to 4.521%. That is up from 4.178% at the end of November.

10-year Treasury yield is solidly higher in December.

Shares of VeriSign climbed more than 3% in premarket trading after a regulatory filing revealed that Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway bought more shares in the company.

The conglomerate added 76,487 more shares of VeriSign over the past three trading days for $15.6 million, bringing its stake to 13.8%. The firm also purchased the internet stock in the prior week. Given the small size of the bet, these transactions could be made by Buffett's investing lieutenants Todd Combs and Ted Weschler.

Berkshire first bought the tech stock in 2013 and hasn't adjusted the stake in years. VeriSign has had a mediocre year with its stock flat in 2024, significantly underperforming the tech sector.

— Yun Li

The dollar index is on track for its third positive year in four.

The late-year jump for the dollar has come as traders have dialed back their expectations for Federal Reserve rate cuts in 2025 and after President-elect Donald Trump's win in November. In general, higher rates from the Fed and higher tariffs are expected to result in a stronger dollar.

The greenback is also hitting new milestones against some key currency pairs. On Tuesday morning, the dollar was trading at its highest level against the Chinese yuan offshore since Oct. 25, 2022.

— Jesse Pound, Christopher Hayes, Gina Francolla

This is where the major averages stand ahead of the final trading session of the year.

Dow Jones Industrial Average:

• Down 5.2% this month for its worst monthly performance since September 2022
• Up 0.6% in the fourth quarter
• Up about 13% this year

S&P 500:

• Dow 2.1% for its worst month since April
• Up 2.5% during the fourth quarter and fifth consecutive winning quarter for the first time since 2021
• Up 23.8% on the year for a consecutive yearly gain of 20% or more

Nasdaq Composite:

• Up 1.4% this month
• Headed for 7.1% fourth-quarter gain and fifth straight winning quarter for the first time since 2021
• Up 29.8% on the year

— Samantha Subin, Chris Hayes