Stocks slip on Wall Street as 2025 winds down

Anthony Spina, center, works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Stocks slipped in quiet trading on Wall Street Monday to kick off another holiday-shortened week.

The losses have little impact on the broader annual gains for major indexes as they close out their final days of the year. There are two trading days left before the year ends. Markets in the U.S. will be closed Thursday for New Year’s Day.

The S&P 500 fell 24.20 points, or 0.3 per cent, to 6,905.74. The benchmark index is still up more than 17 per cent for the year and it remains on track for its eighth monthly gain in a row.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 249.04 points, or 0.5 per cent, to 48,461.93. The Nasdaq composite fell 118.75 points, or 0.5 per cent, to 23,474.35.

Big technology stocks with outsized valuations were among the heaviest weights on the market. Nvidia fell 1.2 per cent and Broadcom fell 0.8 per cent. Investor optimism about the future of artificial intelligence has been driving the sector mostly higher all year and pushing the broader market to a series of records.

Technology stocks have been more unsteady as the year heads to a close, though. They mostly slipped in November and have only notched modest gains through December. Nvidia and several other companies focusing on AI or benefiting heavily from the developing technology have become some of the most valuable in the world. Investors have seemingly become more skeptical about whether the eventual payoff will make the hefty investments worthwhile.

Energy stocks gained ground along with rising oil prices. U.S. benchmark crude jumped 2.4 per cent to settle at US$58.08 per barrel. The price of Brent crude, the international standard, rose 2.1 per cent to settle at US$61.94 a barrel. Exxon Mobil rose 1.2 per cent.

Gold and silver prices pulled back from their recent sharp gains after the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, one of the world’s largest trading floors for commodities, asked traders to put up more cash to make bets on precious metals.

The price of gold fell 4.6 per cent, though prices for the precious metal are still up about 64 per cent for the year. Silver prices slumped 8.7 per cent, but they have still more than doubled overall in 2025.

Treasury yields fell in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.11 per cent from 4.13 per cent late Friday.

Treasury yields have fallen significantly from the start of the year. That’s partly due to initial anticipation for cuts and eventual cuts to interest rates in 2025 from the Federal Reserve. The central bank cut its benchmark interest rate three times later in the year. At the same time, it started facing a more complicated economic situation, where inflation remained stubbornly high while the job market started slowing.

The central bank cut rates with the aim of offsetting the impact on the economy from a slowdown in jobs growth. That risks heating up inflation that is already stubbornly above the central bank’s target rate of 2 per cent. Interest rate cuts could boost the economy by making loans less expensive, but that benefit could be nullified by rising inflation stunting economic growth.

Markets in Europe and Asia were mixed. Shares in Taiwan were higher even after China’s military said it was conducting drills around the self-governed island that Beijing claims as its territory. Taiwan’s benchmark Taiex gained 0.9 per cent, but the Hang Seng in Hong Kong gave up early gains, falling 0.7 per cent.

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Damian J. Troise, The Associated Press. Elaine Kurtenbach contributed to this story.