Wall Street ends year's final session lower but posts big annual gains for 2025

Wall Street ends year's final session lower but posts big annual gains for 2025 

By Saeed Azhar, Purvi Agarwal and Nikhil Sharma

Wed December 31, 2025 6:58 PM  

There isn’t a mention of it anywhere of what might have happened at 2 pm but after spending the entire session in moderate losses, all three indexes took a major dive at 2 pm. Given a lack of explanation, we’ll focus on the obvious, that being that in this fourth day of losses it would seem the Santa Claus rally this year has petered out. The threat of an overvalued tech market and the year-end reallocations has moved money into safer assets as shown in a big spike in the VIX after 1 pm.  

S&P 500, Nasdaq end slightly down in holiday-thin trade, Meta gains on deal

S&P 500, Nasdaq end slightly down in holiday-thin trade, Meta gains on deal

By Saeed Azhar, Purvi Agarwal and Nikhil Sharma

Tue December 30, 2025 4:23 PM

It was a pretty volatile day on all the indexes which is quite typical of a truncated holiday week but in essence the Santa Claus rally remains on pause for a second day as investors seek repositioning of their holdings as today communications services dominated vs declines in tech and financials. As today’s expert put it, “The growth rates are going to converge between tech and everything else next year and the valuation gap is so wide, it is absolutely justified to see repositioning.  

US stocks end down as tech shares drop ahead of New Year

US stocks end down as tech shares drop ahead of New Year

By Saeed Azhar, Purvi Agarwal and Shashwat Chauhan

Mon December 29, 2025 7:10 PM

The traditional Santa Claus rally took a pause today as investors decided to take profits after last week’s very healthy rally. Some prognosticators have said this is the end of the tech rush while others point to the fact that the stretched valuations are justified by the growth. And even though the Dow reached a new record last week, today industrials and tech took a 3-digit hit and the S&P once again dodged the 7,000 mark.  

Wall St Week Ahead S&P 500 eyes 7,000 mark as investors look for upbeat end to strong 2025

Wall St Week Ahead S&P 500 eyes 7,000 mark as investors look for upbeat end to strong 2025

By Lewis Krauskopf

Fri December 26, 2025 6:03 AM

On this day after Christmas, I completely forgot that the market was open today. The financial media must have also been short-staffed on this shortened week because the above headline was all I could find, none of the usual daily market summaries.  But looking at the charts, it’s apparent that all the indexes were flat today which is understandable given the fact that no one’s home. So we’ll just confine this report to the closing numbers and making a note that per the CBOE, volume came in at a mere 10.5 billion, way below 16.6 average, and that too should surprise anyone. 

DJ: 48,731.81  +289.40        NAS: 23,613.31  +51.46        S&P: 6,932.13  +22.34           12/24

DJ: 48,710.97  -20.19           NAS: 23,593.10  -20.21         S&P: 6,929.94  -2.11             12/26

6:03 a.m. 12/26/25 Wall St Week Ahead S&P 500 eyes 7,000 mark as investors look for upbeat end to strong 2025 | Reuters

S&P 500, Dow hit all-time closing highs; gold, silver touch records

S&P 500, Dow hit all-time closing highs; gold, silver touch records

By Stephen Culp

Wed December 24, 2025 4:51 PM  

As has been the trend this week, the Santa Claus rally is going strong as all the indexes were straight up again today, especially the Dow with a handsome 3-digit gain, new records for both the Dow and S&P. Because of seasonal holiday hiring, jobless claims dropped this week but, surprisingly, continuing claims also rose. For the big picture, our expert tells us, “It’s been a good year for stocks and it’s been a super year for precious metals” as today we saw gold rise to just below the $4500 mark.  

S&P registers record close as growth stocks advance

S&P registers record close as growth stocks advance

By Chuck Mikolajczak

Tue December 23, 2025 6:07 PM

The market continues to benefit from Micron’s boost and a resurging confidence in AI reflected in yet another boost to Nvidia to the tune of 3% as well as 1% boosts to each of Amazon, Alphabet and Broadcom. But by far the biggest news was the Q3 GDP report which came in way higher than the estimate, 4.3% vs 3.3%, showing once again the resilience of the economy. But consumer confidence threw a damper on all this as it fell due to deepening concerns over jobs and income. Factory production also remained unchanged after falling in October.  

Wall Street advances with broad gains, tech gains continue

Wall Street advances with broad gains, tech gains continue

By Chuck Mikolajczak

Mon December 22, 2025 7:08 PM  

The indexes shot straight up today and stayed there on yet another round of exuberance driven by Micron and lower than expected inflation. Also boosting was Nvidia’s announcement that its more powerful AI chips will begin shipping to China in February, lending ever more credence to AI after its very brief lapse. The VIX has fallen to its lowest level in over a year and the annual Santa Claus starts on Wednesday, which since 1950 has seen the S&P rise another 1.3%.