NEW YORK, December 29, 2025, 10:30 ET — Regular session.
- The Dow fell 66.86 points, or 0.14%, early Monday after notching a record closing high last week.
- Goldman Sachs and Caterpillar weighed on the price-weighted index, while Chevron and Johnson & Johnson rose.
- Traders are watching Fed minutes due Tuesday and jobless claims later this week in a holiday-thinned stretch with markets shut Thursday for New Year’s Day.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped on Monday as heavyweight technology shares gave back some of last week’s gains, pulling the blue-chip index off its recent highs. By 9:35 a.m. ET, the Dow was down 66.86 points, or 0.14%, at 48,645.62.
The move matters because the final week of the year typically brings lighter trading volume, which can exaggerate swings. U.S. markets will be closed on Thursday for New Year’s Day, and traders expect holiday-affected conditions to keep activity thin.
Investors have also been eyeing whether the late-year rise extends into a so-called Santa Claus rally — a seasonal tendency for stocks to rise in the last five trading days of the year and the first two in January, according to the Stock Trader’s Almanac. The S&P 500 was hovering within about 1% of the 7,000 mark, a round-number level watched as a sentiment gauge.
The S&P 500 was down 0.32% and the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.61% at the same time, showing the weakness was broader than the Dow. Both the Dow and the S&P 500 were on pace for an eighth straight month of gains after technology stocks steadied earlier this month following an upbeat forecast from Micron.
The Dow is a price-weighted index of 30 companies, meaning higher-priced shares have a bigger impact on the index’s point move than lower-priced ones. That structure can make the gauge more sensitive to swings in a handful of heavyweight names.
Sector moves were mixed. Energy stocks held up as crude prices rose, while the S&P 500’s information technology sector fell 0.7%. Nvidia was down 1.6% and Tesla slipped 2.2% after hitting a record high last week.
Inside the Dow, some industrial and financial names came under pressure. As of 10:15 a.m. ET, Goldman Sachs was down about 1.4% and Caterpillar fell about 1.1%, while Chevron rose about 0.8% and Johnson & Johnson gained about 0.8%.
Corporate deal news also moved stocks outside the index. DigitalBridge jumped nearly 10% after SoftBank said it would buy the digital infrastructure investor for $16 a share in a deal valued at $4 billion.
Materials shares lagged as the rally in precious metals cooled. Spot silver fell more than 5% after briefly touching a record $83.62 an ounce earlier on Monday, while gold eased from Friday’s record highs.
Housing data surprised to the upside, adding another datapoint for rate-sensitive sectors. Pending home sales — contracts to buy existing homes that typically become sales within a month or two — rose 3.3% in November after an upwardly revised 2.4% gain in October, above forecasts for a 1% increase.
The pending home sales index rose to its highest level since February 2023, as the National Association of Realtors pointed to improving affordability conditions. Mortgage rates have eased in recent months, with Freddie Mac showing the latest 30-year fixed rate at 6.18%, near the lowest since the fall of 2024.
With few marquee economic releases on the calendar, investors are focused on market internals — particularly whether technology can keep leading. “They’ll likely need tech to do much of the heavy lifting,” said Chris Larkin, managing director of trading and investing at E*TRADE from Morgan Stanley. Reuters
The pullback comes after a strong run in 2025: the S&P 500 has gained about 17% so far this year, and all three major U.S. indexes are on track for their third consecutive yearly gain. The bull market that began in October 2022 has remained intact despite periodic valuation worries around large technology stocks.
Traders next turn to the Federal Reserve’s previous meeting minutes due Tuesday and a weekly reading on jobless claims, in what remains an otherwise data-light week. With holiday-thinned conditions and a market closure later this week, investors are bracing for uneven price action into year-end.
