Stock Market News: Dow Falls for Sixth Day in a Row
The Nasdaq Composite has a post-20K hangover.
The tech-heavy index was down 0.4% closing above 20,000 for the first time on record. The S&P 500 was down 0.2% after closing not far off a record of its own. The Dow was down 85 points, or 0.2%, as the blue-chip index continued to be weighed down by some of its largest members. It’s on track to fall for a sixth day in a row.
Wall Street had been favoring megacap technology and chip stocks in recent sessions, which helped push the S&P and Nasdaq higher despite subpar market breadth. After the latest wave of inflation data showed stalling progress on reducing price growth to the Federal Reserve’s 2% annual target, that trade seems to have lost some steam.
Of the Magnificent Seven stocks, only Microsoft, Apple, and Meta were rising on Thursday. The Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF, a proxy for the group, was down 0.4%. The iShares Semiconductor ETF was down 1.5%.
Of the 11 major S&P 500 sectors, only four were on the rise. Energy, technology, and materials were the biggest laggards. Consumer staples, utilities, real estate, and communication services were all up more than 0.6%.
The stock market is still hovering near record levels about two weeks into December. It wouldn’t be surprising to see the market push back higher to close out the year on a high note. But when traders get back to their desks in 2025, uncertainty about the year ahead may start to creep into markets.