NEW YORK, December 30, 2025, 13:22 ET — Regular session
- U.S. stocks trade narrowly mixed in holiday-thin volumes as investors wait for Fed minutes
- Meta rises after saying it will acquire AI startup Manus
- Traders watch for signals on 2026 rate cuts after a divided December decision
U.S. stocks edged lower in holiday-thin trade on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq near flat as investors waited for the Federal Reserve’s meeting minutes. Meta Platforms rose after saying it will buy AI startup Manus, helping support communication services shares. At 12:00 p.m. ET, the Dow fell 0.24%, the S&P 500 slipped 0.09% and the Nasdaq Composite eased 0.07%.
The quiet tape matters because markets are closing out the year near record levels, and light volume can exaggerate otherwise small moves. The pause follows Monday’s pullback in heavyweight technology shares after last week’s gains pushed the S&P 500 to fresh highs.
Traders are focused on the Fed’s December 9–10 meeting minutes due later Tuesday, a release that often resets expectations for the path of rates. The central bank’s latest 25-basis-point cut — 0.25 percentage point — took the target range to 3.50%–3.75% and drew three dissenting votes, Reuters reported.
Meta shares were up about 1.2% in midday trading.
Meta said on Monday it would acquire Chinese-founded artificial intelligence startup Manus, stepping up efforts to fold more advanced AI into its products. Financial terms were not disclosed, but a source with direct knowledge said the deal values Singapore-based Manus at $2 billion to $3 billion; Manus has also struck a strategic partnership with Alibaba, Reuters reported. “We see a natural fit into Meta’s fast-growing, WhatsApp SMB (small, medium business) footprint,” Barton Crockett, an analyst at Rosenblatt Securities, said. Reuters
Other mega-cap tech was softer. Apple fell about 0.3% and Nvidia eased roughly 0.2%, while Microsoft edged up about 0.2%.
Financials also leaned on the Dow. Goldman Sachs slipped about 1% and American Express was down around 0.2%.
In the clean-energy complex, T1 Energy said it completed a $160 million sale of Section 45X production tax credits to an investment-grade buyer. Section 45X credits are U.S. incentives tied to domestic manufacturing of certain clean-energy components, and companies can sell them to raise cash.
T1 Energy shares gained about 3.7%.
With the minutes still ahead, investors are also watching year-end positioning in a shortened holiday week. Portfolio managers sometimes “window dress” at quarter-end by trimming losers and adding recent winners to make holdings look stronger in reports.
The next catalyst is the Fed minutes themselves: any hint on how officials weighed sticky inflation against softening data could move Treasury yields and, in turn, rate-sensitive stocks. Traders are also watching whether the late-December seasonal bid often dubbed the Santa Claus rally shows up in the first trading days of 2026.
