Nasdaq Today (December 2, 2025): Tech Stocks Rebound, Crypto Stabilizes, and AI Bubble Fears Shape 2026 Outlook

After a shaky start to December, the Nasdaq Composite snapped back on Tuesday, December 2, 2025, as heavyweight tech and AI names led a broad rebound and crypto markets steadied. The move came against a backdrop of rising bets on a Federal Reserve rate cut next week and increasingly loud debate over whether AI-fueled valuations are becoming a bubble.

According to exchange data, the Nasdaq Composite closed around 23,482 points, up roughly 0.9% on the day, with an intraday range between about 23,366 and 23,510 and volume north of 330 million shares. ^[1] That puts the tech-heavy index less than 2% below its late‑October record close near 23,827, underscoring how little room there is between current levels and all‑time highs. ^[2]

1. Market Recap: Nasdaq Leads a Tentative Rebound

Monday’s sell-off set the stage

Monday, December 1, saw a classic “risk‑off” day on Wall Street:

Nasdaq Composite: fell 0.38% to 23,275.92
S&P 500: dropped 0.53% to 6,812.63
Dow Jones Industrial Average: slid 0.90% to 47,289.33 ^[3]

The catalyst was a jump in Treasury yields, a weak U.S. manufacturing report showing contraction for a ninth straight month, and a sharp 6–8% plunge in Bitcoin to an intraday low just under $84,000. Crypto‑linked stocks tumbled alongside, with record outflows from U.S. Bitcoin ETFs in November adding to the pressure. ^[4]

That backdrop raised questions about whether a late‑year “Santa rally” in tech and growth stocks was running out of steam just as December began.

Tuesday: tech and crypto stabilize

By Tuesday morning, futures and pre‑market trading were already hinting at a bounce. The Nasdaq‑100 pre‑market indicator climbed about 119 points to 25,462, with heavy activity in Intel, Eventbrite, leveraged QQQ products, and Nvidia. ^[5]

During the regular session:

Reuters reported the Nasdaq up about 0.85% in early trade, the S&P 500 around +0.37% and the Dow roughly flat. ^[6]
The information technology sector rose about 1.4%, led by a roughly 3% gain in Nvidia and a 5% jump in Dell Technologies. ^[7]
By mid‑day, AP and other outlets pegged the Nasdaq’s advance near 1%, with the S&P 500 up about 0.5% and the Dow around 0.4%. ^[8]

Bitcoin also helped turn sentiment around. After Monday’s rout, the cryptocurrency rebounded to the high‑$80,000s / low‑$90,000s, lifting crypto‑exposed names such as Coinbase, Robinhood and Strategy, which were up in the low‑ to mid‑single digits. ^[9]

By the close, the Nasdaq’s roughly 0.9% gain brought the index back above 23,480, clawing back more than the prior day’s loss and keeping it within striking distance of record territory. ^[10]

2. What Moved the Nasdaq Today

Big tech and AI bellwethers

Unsurprisingly, the day’s leadership came from the names that dominate the index:

Nvidia (NVDA): up about 3% intraday to a more‑than‑one‑week high, as investors rotated back into AI‑hardware plays after Monday’s tech slump. ^[11]
Dell Technologies: jumped around 5% on optimism over future PC and AI‑server demand. ^[12]
Intel: gained over 2% after featuring among the most active pre‑market stocks. ^[13]

On the software and high‑growth side:

MongoDB surged more than 25% after a strong earnings report, making it one of the biggest individual contributors to Nasdaq’s upside. ^[14]
United Natural Foods rallied over 10%, while Signet Jewelers fell roughly 3–4% on a cautious holiday outlook, underscoring how sensitive consumer‑facing names remain to forward guidance. ^[15]

Crypto-linked names

After Monday’s carnage, crypto was a notable support:

Bitcoin bounced back above roughly $89,000–$90,000 at points during the session. ^[16]
Crypto‑sensitive stocks — including Coinbase, Strategy and Robinhood — were up roughly 2–6% as bargain hunters stepped in and liquidations slowed. ^[17]

The iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) also appeared among pre‑market most‑active names, trading more than 1 million shares and up over a dollar before the open, signaling that ETF flows were turning less negative. ^[18]

3. Fed Rate-Cut Bets: The Macro Engine Behind the Rally

Tuesday’s move in the Nasdaq wasn’t just about single stocks. It was also about interest rates and Fed expectations, which directly feed into the valuations of growth and AI names.

Traders now price in about an 87% probability that the Federal Reserve will cut rates by 25 basis points at its December 10 meeting, almost double the odds from a month ago. ^[19]
Markets are laser‑focused on Friday’s release of the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Price Index, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, as the next key data point. ^[20]

Recent economic data — notably weak manufacturing and evidence of a gradually cooling economy — are reinforcing the sense that the Fed has room to ease, even as some policymakers warn against cutting too fast. ^[21]

At the same time, the politics of the Fed are starting to matter for markets: reports that White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett is a leading contender to replace Fed Chair Jerome Powell have added another layer of uncertainty about the medium‑term path of rates. ^[22]

For the Nasdaq, lower policy rates translate directly into:

Lower discount rates for long‑duration growth cashflows
Easier financing for AI data centers, chips, and cloud build‑outs
Supportive conditions for leveraged speculative pockets like crypto

That’s the bullish side of the story. The rest of today’s newsflow, however, shows why the AI trade is no longer a one‑way bet.

4. Valuations: How Stretched Is the AI-Led Nasdaq?

Tech’s earnings share vs. market value

A Reuters analysis published late last month highlighted the growing disconnect between tech’s earnings contribution and its market weight:

U.S. tech companies now account for about 20.8% of S&P 500 earnings, down from 22.8% just three quarters earlier.
At the same time, their share of the index’s market capitalization has climbed to about 31.1% from roughly 30% at the start of the year. ^[23]

For the Nasdaq Composite, the same analysis pegged the index’s forward price‑to‑earnings ratio at roughly 29.3 times, well above its 10‑year average around 23.5 and higher than the S&P 500’s forward multiple of about 24.3. ^[24]

Analysts quoted in that report warn that if earnings fail to keep pace with valuation expansion, the tech sector could face a mid‑single‑digit pullback in a mild case — or a deeper, double‑digit correction if risk premiums normalize. ^[25]

OECD: AI bubble is a “key downside risk”

The OECD’s fresh economic outlook, released today, put an official, macro‑level stamp on those worries. The organization:

Projects U.S. growth slowing from 2% in 2025 to 1.7% in 2026, before a modest re‑acceleration.
Warns that a correction in equity markets driven by AI optimism is a “key downside risk” to the U.S. economy.
Notes that weaker‑than‑expected growth, disappointing AI investment returns or upside inflation surprises could all trigger a broad risk repricing, especially given stretched valuations and leverage in non‑bank financial institutions. ^[26]

For Nasdaq investors, that effectively means: the macro establishment now sees an AI‑driven market shakeout as a real, not hypothetical, scenario.

5. What Wall Street’s Strategists Are Saying About 2026

Despite the valuation concerns, the message from major banks today isn’t “get out of tech” — it’s “expect more, but less.”

RBC: “Position for less, be happy with more”

In a new “Market Overview: More but less” piece, RBC Wealth Management argues that developed‑market equities — including the U.S. — are likely to keep making new highs into 2026, but with more modest, mid‑single‑digit returnsrather than another year of 2025‑style fireworks. ^[27]

Key points from RBC’s analysis:

Consensus U.S. GDP growth for 2026 is about 1.9%. Historically, U.S. equity returns are much stronger when growth runs above 2% than in the 1–2% “muddle‑through” zone. ^[28]
The Congressional Budget Office projects GDP growth rising from about 1.4% in 2025 to 2.2% in 2026, then slipping back below 2% in 2027–28. ^[29]
Using consensus assumptions for inflation, interest rates and earnings, RBC’s model generates a base‑case S&P 500 level near 7,100 by late 2026, implying roughly 7–8% price upside from late‑November levels — decent, but not spectacular. ^[30]

On valuations, RBC underscores just how concentrated the market has become:

The top 10 S&P 500 constituents — largely AI megacaps — trade near 27x earnings vs. a long‑term average around 18.6x, while the rest of the index trades around 17.7x vs. its 15x historical norm. ^[31]

RBC’s takeaway: both the AI leaders and the broader market are expensive relative to history, so mid‑single‑digit returns plus dividends in 2026 are the most realistic expectation. ^[32]

BofA: strong growth, limited index upside, more volatility

A new BofA Global Research 2026 outlook, released this morning, echoes that theme with a slightly more bullish macro tone: ^[33]

U.S. GDP: forecast at 2.4% (Q4 2026 vs. Q4 2025), above consensus.
S&P 500 earnings: expected to grow about 14% in 2026.
S&P 500 price target: just 4–5% upside to a year‑end 2026 target of 7,100, implying multiple compression even as earnings rise.
Fed policy: BofA expects one rate cut in December 2025, followed by two more in 2026, with the 10‑year U.S. Treasury yield ending 2026 near 4–4.25%.

BofA’s strategists explicitly say they see an “AI boom – but no bubble yet”, arguing that AI capex and productivity gains justify elevated valuations for now — but they also flag higher volatility as markets digest AI’s real impact on growth, inflation and capital spending. ^[34]

BlackRock: bullish AI, cautious on long-term bonds

In its 2026 global investment outlook released today, the BlackRock Investment Institute announced it is turning underweight long‑term U.S. Treasuries for the next 6–12 months, citing an oncoming wave of AI‑related corporate borrowing layered on top of already‑record U.S. public debt above $38 trillion. ^[35]

BlackRock’s logic:

AI build‑outs could require hundreds of billions of dollars in new debt, keeping long‑dated yields structurally higher.
That raises the cost of capital for AI projects and the broader economy and increases vulnerability to shocks (for example, a sudden spike in yields driven by fiscal worries). ^[36]

Yet BlackRock remains constructive on U.S. equities, expecting AI‑driven revenues to continue to lift the market, while stressing that returns are likely to diverge sharply between winners and laggards, making stock selection more important. ^[37]

6. Single-Stock Spotlight: Nvidia and the AI Trade

No discussion of the Nasdaq today is complete without Nvidia, still the index’s defining AI bellwether.

A fresh long‑term forecast from 24/7 Wall St. released around today’s session notes that:

Nvidia shares have surged more than 1,200% over the last five years and over 450,000% since its 1999 IPO on a split‑adjusted basis. ^[38]
The median 12‑month Wall Street target price is about $257.72, implying roughly 43% upside from current levels.
24/7 Wall St.’s own baseline model projects Nvidia’s EPS rising to about $2.75 in 2025 and $7.24 by 2030, supporting a 2030 price target near $318 (around 77% above today) with higher upside in a more bullish scenario. ^[39]

The thesis is straightforward:

Nvidia still dominates cutting‑edge GPUs.
Its biggest customers — Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft — collectively generate around 40% of its revenue, all racing to lead in generative AI. ^[40]
Third‑party estimates project the global AI market to grow at a roughly 36–37% compound annual rate through 2030, expanding the pie Nvidia can tap. ^[41]

That story remains central to why Nasdaq’s multiples sit so far above their historical norms — and why any meaningful disappointment in AI monetization would hit the index disproportionately hard.

7. What Today Means for Nasdaq Investors

Putting it all together, the message from December 2, 2025 is nuanced:

The near-term backdrop is supportive.
- The Fed is widely expected to cut rates next week.
- Crypto and high‑beta tech have stabilized after Monday’s shock.
- The Nasdaq is back within about 1.5% of record highs, showing there is still strong demand for AI and growth exposure. ^[42]
Valuations are rich and increasingly a macro talking point.
- Forward P/Es for the Nasdaq remain well above long‑run averages. ^[43]
- OECD, major banks and independent analysts are all flagging AI‑driven over‑exuberance as a key risk, not a fringe concern. ^[44]
Consensus for 2026 is “more, but less.”
- RBC and BofA both anticipate positive, but more modest equity returns next year, even under relatively optimistic GDP and earnings scenarios. ^[45]
- That suggests stock‑picking, sector rotation and risk management may matter more than simply riding the index.

For traders and investors focused on the Nasdaq, today’s session looks like a healthy rebound within a highly valued, AI‑centric bull market — one that increasingly hinges on whether earnings, productivity and economic growth can catch up with the story that prices are already telling.

As always, this article is for information purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Anyone considering trading or investing in Nasdaq‑linked securities should evaluate their own objectives and risk tolerance and, ideally, consult a qualified financial professional.