Holiday travel season expected to be one of the busiest yet

TheStreet's J.D. Durkin brings the latest business headlines from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange as markets close for trading Tuesday, December 12th.

Full Video Transcript Below:

J.D. DURKIN: I'm J.D. Durkin - reporting from the New York Stock Exchange.

Stocks were in the green to close out today's session. The Dow closed up 170 points, the Nasdaq closed up seven tenths of a percent, and the S&P closed four tenths of a percent higher.

This comes as investors continue to digest the November inflation report, which saw consumer prices up 3.1 percent year over year, a slight decline from the 3.2 percent in October. This is still above the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent inflation target.

Investors are also looking ahead to the Fed’s interest rate decision as the 2-day policy meeting kicks off today. While traders are largely expecting the central bank to hold rates steady, Wall Street will be paying close attention to Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s comments for any hints into the future of interest rates.

Meanwhile, this holiday travel season is shaping up to be one of the busiest. According to Triple A, the number of Americans expected to travel over the 10-day year-end holiday period from December 23rd to January 1st is expected to surpass 115 million, the second-highest level seen in two decades. This would mark a 2 percent increase from 2022.

According to forecasts, an estimated 7 and a half million people are expected to take flights during that same period, a jump from the 7.3 million seen in 2019. This expected surge comes after the Thanksgiving holiday broke travel records with over 2 million people screened at U.S. airports in a single day.

That’ll do it for your daily briefing. From the New York Stock Exchange, I’m J.D. Durkin with TheStreet.