NEW YORK, December 30, 2025, 17:42 ET — After-hours
- S&P 500 and Nasdaq ended slightly lower in choppy, holiday-thin trading; Dow also slipped.
- Meta rose after it said it will buy AI startup Manus, helping communication services outperform.
- Fed minutes showed divisions around December’s rate cut as investors look to January data.
U.S. stocks finished modestly lower on Tuesday, with Meta Platforms climbing on an AI acquisition that helped offset weakness in technology and financial shares. The S&P 500 fell 0.14% to 6,896.24, the Nasdaq Composite slid 0.23% to 23,419.08 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 0.20% to 48,367.06. Reuters
The subdued close mattered because trading desks are heading into the final session of 2025 with holiday-thinned liquidity, a setup that can exaggerate price swings. Investors have also started to rotate within the market after last week’s rally pushed the S&P 500 to a record high. Reuters
Traders also kept one eye on the Federal Reserve after minutes showed policymakers were split as they debated December’s quarter-point rate cut. The minutes helped keep the rates outlook front and center as markets prepare for a January restart in economic data releases. Reuters
Communication services was among the stronger S&P 500 sectors, lifted by a 1.1% rise in Meta Platforms (META.O). Meta said it would acquire Manus, a Chinese-founded AI startup now based in Singapore, as it accelerates efforts to weave advanced AI into products including Meta AI. Reuters+1
Financial terms were not disclosed, but a source with direct knowledge said the deal values Manus at $2 billion to $3 billion. Manus went viral earlier this year after releasing what it described as a “general AI agent” that can make decisions and carry out tasks with less prompting than chatbots; it also has a strategic partnership with Alibaba, Reuters reported. Reuters
Elsewhere in Big Tech, Apple (AAPL.O) fell 0.3% and Nvidia (NVDA.O) dropped 0.4%, while Microsoft (MSFT.O) edged higher. “The valuation gap is so wide, it absolutely is justified to see repositioning,” said Mark Hackett, chief market strategist at Nationwide, referring to the market’s shift between technology and other sectors. Reuters
Financials weighed on the Dow, with losses in Goldman Sachs (GS.N) and American Express (AXP.N) cited as drags. The broader tape remained choppy as investors balanced year-end profit-taking with still-strong 2025 gains. Reuters
Citigroup (C.N) fell 0.8% after it announced its board approved the sale of its Russian unit, AO Citibank, to Renaissance Capital, a deal that will lead to a pre-tax loss of about $1.2 billion largely tied to currency translation. Citi said the sale is expected to close in the first half of 2026, and described the impact as capital-neutral to its common equity tier 1 ratio. Reuters+1
Citi said the hit is linked to a “currency translation adjustment,” an accounting line that captures gains or losses when foreign subsidiary results are converted into the parent’s reporting currency. It also referenced “accumulated other comprehensive income,” a balance-sheet equity bucket that holds certain unrealized gains and losses that do not run through net income. Reuters
Energy stocks outperformed, with the S&P 500 energy sub-index up 0.8% as oil prices firmed amid geopolitical tensions, Reuters reported. Trading volumes stayed light in the holiday-truncated week, with U.S. exchanges seeing about 12.63 billion shares change hands versus a 20-session average of 16.03 billion. Reuters
On the macro front, Fed minutes covering the December 9–10 meeting showed some officials viewed the decision as “finely balanced,” even among supporters of the cut. The quarter-point move lowered the benchmark rate to a 3.5%–3.75% range, and investors are now largely pricing in the Fed holding steady at its next meeting on Jan. 27–28, Reuters reported. Reuters
What investors watch next is whether the market’s late-year tech pullback stabilizes in Wednesday’s final 2025 session, and how quickly liquidity returns after the holiday week. On the policy side, traders will focus on a backlog of December jobs data due on Jan. 9 and December consumer price data due on Jan. 13, which the Fed minutes flagged as part of the post-shutdown data catch-up. Reuters
