NEW YORK, December 31, 2025, 21:12 ET — Market closed.
- KLA fell 2.3% to $1,215.08 in the final session of 2025.
- U.S. stocks ended the year lower as Treasury yields rose after jobless claims data.
- Focus shifts to January macro data, the Fed’s late-January meeting, and KLA’s next earnings update.
KLA Corp shares (KLAC) fell 2.3% to $1,215.08 on Wednesday, tracking a pullback in semiconductor equipment stocks in thin year-end trading.
The move matters because KLA is widely watched as a read-through on chipmakers’ spending, and the sector has been sensitive to interest-rate swings. Higher yields can pressure long-duration growth stocks — companies whose valuations lean heavily on future earnings. 1
Treasury yields moved higher after new U.S. jobless claims unexpectedly fell, reinforcing a “higher-for-longer” rates debate heading into 2026. Initial claims dropped by 16,000 to 199,000 for the week ended Dec. 27, Reuters reported. 2
Wall Street’s main indexes closed lower on the last trading day of 2025, with the Dow down 0.63%, the S&P 500 off 0.74% and the Nasdaq falling 0.76%, Reuters said. 1
KLA’s decline came alongside losses in peers. Applied Materials fell 1.1% and Lam Research dropped 1.5%, while ASML’s U.S.-listed shares edged down 0.2%, based on closing data.
Market strategists framed the late-December drift as positioning rather than a change in fundamentals. “It’ll turn out to be a buying opportunity,” Hank Smith, head of investment strategy at Haverford Trust, told Reuters this week. 3
KLA sells process-control and inspection tools that help chipmakers detect defects and improve yield — the share of usable chips produced from a wafer — as manufacturing steps get more complex. 4
The company’s next catalyst is its December-quarter results. KLA previously guided fiscal second-quarter revenue to $3.225 billion plus or minus $150 million and non-GAAP diluted EPS to $8.70 plus or minus $0.78; non-GAAP is a company-defined metric that excludes certain items management says can obscure underlying performance. 4
With the Dec. 31 quarter now complete, investors will be watching whether KLA meets or raises that outlook and what it says about demand from leading-edge foundry/logic, memory and advanced packaging customers tied to AI-related compute. 4
Before the next session, U.S. equities markets are closed on Jan. 1 for New Year’s Day and reopen on Jan. 2, according to exchange calendars. 5
On the macro calendar, traders will be watching the U.S. Employment Situation report for December on Jan. 9, a key input for interest-rate expectations. 6
The Federal Reserve’s next policy meeting is scheduled for Jan. 27–28, putting fresh focus on how officials interpret early-2026 labor and inflation data. 7
On the tape, KLA traded as low as $1,213.27 on Wednesday, leaving the $1,200 area in view after the year-end slide. Any rebound would need to reclaim the prior close of $1,243.65 to reverse the latest drop, based on price data.
Earnings calendars are already a focal point for the stock. MarketBeat lists KLA’s next report as an estimated Jan. 29 release after the close, noting the date is based on past reporting schedules rather than a confirmed company announcement. 8
