Stocks slip on Wall Street as 2025 winds down

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NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks slipped in afternoon trading on Wall Street Monday to kick off another holiday-shortened week.

The S&P 500 fell 0.5%. With just three trading days left in 2025, the benchmark index is still up more than 17% for the year and it remains on track for its eighth monthly gain in a row.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 249 points, or 0.5%, as of 12:03 p.m. Eastern. The Nasdaq composite fell 0.6%.

Big technology stocks with outsized valuations were among the heaviest weights on the market. Nvidia fell 1.7% and Broadcom fell 0.8%. Investor optimism about the future of artificial intelligence has been driving the sector mostly higher all year and pushing the broader market to a series of records.

Technology stocks have been more unsteady as the year heads to a close, though. They mostly slipped in November and have only notched modest gains through December. Nvidia and several other companies focusing on AI or benefiting heavily from the developing technology have become some of the most valuable in the world. Investors have seemingly become more skeptical about whether the eventual payoff will make the hefty investments worthwhile.

Energy stocks gained ground along with rising oil prices. U.S. benchmark crude jumped 2.3% to $58.08 per barrel. The price of Brent crude, the international standard, rose 2.1% to $61.48 a barrel.

Exxon Mobil rose 1.5%.

Gold and silver prices pulled back from their recent sharp gains after the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, one of the world’s largest trading floors for commodities, asked traders to put up more cash to make bets on precious metals.

The price of gold fell 4.3%, though prices for the precious metal are still up about 65% for the year. Silver prices slumped 7.2%, but they have still more than doubled overall in 2025.

Wall Street faces another short week in the final stretch of 2025. Markets in the U.S. will be closed on Thursday for New Year's Day.

Treasury yields fell in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.12% from 4.13% late Friday.

Treasury yields have fallen significantly from the start of the year. That's partly due to initial anticipation for cuts and eventual cuts to interest rates in 2025 from the Federal Reserve. The central bank cut its benchmark interest rate three times later in the year. At the same time, it started facing a more complicated economic situation, where inflation remained stubbornly high while the job market started slowing.

The central bank cut rates with the aim of offsetting the impact on the economy from a slowdown in jobs growth. That risks heating up inflation that is already stubbornly above the central bank's target rate of 2%. Interest rate cuts could boost the economy by making loans less expensive, but that benefit could be nullified by rising inflation stunting economic growth.

Markets in Europe and Asia were mixed. Shares in Taiwan were higher even after China’s military said it was conducting drills around the self-governed island that Beijing claims as its territory. Taiwan's benchmark Taiex gained 0.9%, but the Hang Seng in Hong Kong gave up early gains, falling 0.7%.

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Elaine Kurtenbach contributed to this story.