NEW YORK, December 30, 2025, 09:53 ET — Regular session
- Wall Street opened slightly lower after a tech-led slide in the previous session halted the year-end rally.
- Precious metals rebounded after a sharp drop tied to higher exchange margin requirements.
- Investors are watching Fed minutes due later Tuesday for clues on the 2026 rate path.
Wall Street’s main indexes opened with modest declines on Tuesday after a technology-driven pullback in the prior session interrupted the late-December grind higher. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 27 points, or 0.06%, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite edged down about 0.1% at the opening bell.
The muted start comes as investors navigate the final two sessions of 2025 with thin liquidity and a market still sitting near record territory. On Monday, the Dow fell 0.51%, the S&P 500 lost 0.35% and the Nasdaq dropped 0.50%, dragged lower by AI-linked names such as Nvidia and Palantir, while Tesla slid 3.3%. “It’ll turn out to be a buying opportunity,” Hank Smith, director and head of investment strategy at Haverford Trust, said. Reuters
Traders are now focused on the Federal Reserve’s meeting minutes from Dec. 9–10, due at 2:00 p.m. ET, for a clearer read on how policymakers view inflation risks and the bar for further easing. The minutes follow a rate cut that lowered the target range to 3.50%–3.75% and revealed sharp divisions inside the committee, Reuters reported.
The most dramatic moves early Tuesday were again outside equities. Gold and silver bounced after a steep drop a day earlier, when the Chicago Mercantile Exchange raised margin requirements — the cash collateral traders must post — for precious metals positions, prompting some investors to cut exposure.
In corporate news, Meta Platforms shares rose about 1% in early trading after the company said it would acquire AI startup Manus, a deal one source estimated values the Singapore-based firm at $2–3 billion. The move underscores the intensifying race among big tech to add “agent” software — tools designed to carry out tasks with minimal prompting — to consumer products. Reuters
Boeing gained nearly 2% after the Pentagon announced an $8.6 billion contract tied to the F-15 Israel Program, including the delivery of 25 new fighter jets with an option for 25 more. Work is expected to run through 2035, Reuters reported.
DigitalBridge was little changed after the data-center investment firm agreed to be acquired by SoftBank Group in a $4 billion deal aimed at scaling AI infrastructure, SoftBank said. The agreement prices DigitalBridge at $16 per share and is expected to close in the second half of 2026, Barron’s reported.
Fresh economic data added to the “soft landing” debate. The S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index rose 1.3% year-on-year in October, slightly above forecasts and down from the prior month, according to Investing.com. Investing.com
Separate government data pointed to a similar cooling trend, with the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s house price index up 1.7% from a year earlier in October — the slowest annual pace since 2012, Reuters reported. For equities, housing is a key inflation channel because shelter costs feed into broader price measures the Fed watches.
Regional factory signals improved but stayed weak. The Chicago Business Barometer, produced with MNI, rebounded 7.2 points to 43.5 in December, remaining below 50 — the line that separates expansion from contraction — for a 25th straight month.
Before the year ends, investors will also watch holiday-thinned flows and the next macro checkpoint: initial jobless claims due Wednesday, with U.S. stock markets scheduled to trade normal hours on Dec. 31 before closing for New Year’s Day. Bond markets are set for an early close on Wednesday, MarketWatch reported.
