NEW YORK, December 29, 2025, 16:51 ET — After-hours
- Dow fell 249.04 points, or 0.51%, to 48,461.93; S&P 500 and Nasdaq also closed lower
- Tech and AI-linked shares led declines, while energy stocks firmed with higher oil prices
- Investors are watching Tuesday’s Fed minutes and a shifted jobless-claims release on Wednesday
Wall Street’s main indexes ended lower on Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average sliding 249.04 points, or 0.51%, to 48,461.93 as tech shares cooled after last week’s run-up. The S&P 500 fell 0.35% to 6,905.74 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.50% to 23,474.35.
The timing matters because the market is heading into the final stretch of the year near record levels, when positioning and thin liquidity can magnify swings. Traders have also been watching whether a late-December “Santa Claus rally” — the seasonal tendency for stocks to rise into year-end — can hold.
The next test comes quickly: the Federal Reserve is scheduled to release minutes from its December 9–10 meeting on Tuesday at 2:00 p.m. ET, a detailed record of the policy discussion investors use to gauge how officials see inflation, growth and the path for rates.
Markets are operating on a holiday schedule this week, with the NYSE and Nasdaq open on New Year’s Eve but closed on New Year’s Day. The weekly U.S. jobless claims report is set to be released on Wednesday, and bond markets are slated to close early at 2 p.m. ET that day.
On the Dow, losses in higher-priced components carried extra weight because the index is price-weighted — meaning a $1 move in a member’s share price has an outsized impact versus market-cap-weighted benchmarks. MarketWatch flagged declines in Nvidia and Goldman Sachs as major drags on the Dow in Monday’s slide.
“The broader market is looking at the strength of last week and selling off as we head into year-end,” said Rob Haworth, senior investment strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management. CNA
In single-stock moves, Tesla fell 3.3% and Nvidia slid 1.2% in a broad pullback that also hit precious-metals names; Newmont dropped 5.6% as gold prices retreated, Barron’s reported.
Outside equities, energy provided a pocket of support as oil prices jumped, while precious metals sold off sharply after last week’s surge. The Associated Press said gold fell 4.6% and silver dropped 8.7% after the Chicago Mercantile Exchange raised margin requirements, while the 10-year Treasury yield eased to about 4.11%.
Deal news also drew attention: DigitalBridge said SoftBank Group will acquire it for $16.00 per share in cash, a transaction the companies valued at about $4 billion, as SoftBank pushes deeper into data-center and digital-infrastructure assets tied to AI.
Before Tuesday’s session, investors will be tracking the Fed minutes alongside a fresh set of housing and business-activity reads, including the Case-Shiller home price index and the Chicago Business Barometer, with few major corporate earnings on the calendar, Investopedia wrote.
Politics and central-bank leadership are also on the radar: U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he may sue Fed Chair Jerome Powell over the Fed’s headquarters renovation and plans to announce his choice for the next Fed chair in January 2026, Reuters reported.
For Dow watchers, the near-term question is whether year-end rebalancing turns into a broader trim of 2025’s biggest winners, or whether buyers step back in after Monday’s dip. Any shift in the Fed’s message — or in traders’ expectations for 2026 rate cuts — could set the tone for the final two sessions of 2025 and the first trading day of 2026.
