Market Extra: Is the stock market open? Here are the market hours on New Year’s Eve and Day

Most global financial markets will be closed on Friday, Jan. 1, for New Year’s Day.

Check out: ‘Santa Claus’ rally has begun. Why few 7-session stretches are better for the stock market.

Equity markets are aiming to wrap up December, the fourth quarter and 2020 on a high note after a historic, gut-wrenching year that will go down in the annals of financial-market history.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
+0.24%
is set to close out the month up 2.6%, with a 6.6% year-to-date gain so far, and a 9.5% rise over the final three months of the year, according to FactSet data.

See: Stock-market timing expert DeMark ‘confident’ S&P 500 surges 5% in next 2-3 weeks—then watch out!

The S&P 500 index
SPX,
+0.13%
is looking at a 3.1% advance in December and a 15.5% annual return, aided by an 11% surge in the quarter, while the Nasdaq Composite Index
COMP,
+0.15%
is on track for a 5.5% rally on the month and a 43% year-to-date rise, with a 15.25% gain since the start of October.

Perhaps even more impressive, the small-capitalization Russell 2000 index
RUT,
+1.05%
has gained 8.8% in December and nearly 19% in the year to date, capped by a record-setting return in the final three months of the year of more than 31%.

Read: Stock-market pros are having a tough time imagining an S&P 500 slump in 2021

Still, the economic and emotional toll in a year marked by the COVID-19 pandemic has been great, and is likely to continue into 2021. It’s unclear what lies ahead as the viral spread continues even as vaccines from Pfizer
PFE,
-0.84%
-BioNTech
BNTX,
-4.92%,
Moderna
MRNA,
-2.85%
and AstraZeneca
AZN,
+0.56%
are being rolled out.

The U.S. set a fresh record for hospitalizations of patients with COVID-19 on Wednesday, with 124,686 patients in U.S. hospitals, breaking the record set on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the first cases of a more transmissible variant of the coronavirus were found in Colorado and California.

The U.S. continues to lead the world in cases, at 19.6 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University, and fatalities, at 340,004, or about a fifth of the global tally for each.

The path forward looks like a challenging one, but American businesses and workers are looking to bring more fight to the battle in the coming year, with market participants also harboring tons of optimism.