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<\/p>\nA trader works at the New York Stock Exchange on Dec. 29, 2025. <\/p>\n
NYSE<\/p>\n
Stock Chart IconStock chart icon<\/p>\n
S&P 500, YTD performance<\/p>\n
Those declines are somewhat worrisome given that the final five trading days of the year, and the first two of the next, are a seasonally rewarding stretch \u2014 often referred to as a time for the “Santa Claus” rally<\/a> \u2014 that usually gives stocks one last push toward year-end. <\/p>\n But the recent profit-taking could also foreshadow some of the volatility ahead. Strategists surveyed by CNBC expect the S&P 500 could post yet another double-digit advance in 2026<\/a>, but many worry stocks could spend much of the year range-bound as corporate earnings growth catches up to lofty multiples. <\/p>\n “As we look towards next year, we’re expecting a little bit more volatility,” Meghan Shue, head of investment strategy and portfolio construction at Wilmington Trust, said Tuesday on CNBC’s “Closing Bell.”<\/p>\n “I think this is a healthy sort of churn as we reset for the next leg of the bull market, which we expect to continue, outside of what we still have as a decently high recession risk,” Shue added.<\/p>\n Artificial intelligence has been the defining force driving the market for the last three years. In 2023, the S&P 500 surged 24%, after the debut of ChatGPT<\/a> the prior year unleashed a fervor around the companies most likely to benefit from a technological revolution that harkens back to the dawn of the internet. <\/p>\n In 2024, the broad market index rallied 23%. As of Tuesday’s close, in 2025, the S&P 500 is up more than 17%, and on the cusp of all-time highs. <\/p>\n Still, the AI narrative fractured somewhat this year, as the rally started to broaden out to other sectors, and even performance among the so-called Magnificent Seven stocks bifurcated. Alphabet<\/a> was the big winner among the megacaps, up more than 65% year to date, as investors bet the search giant could edge out OpenAI. Amazon<\/a> was the laggard, gaining roughly 6%. <\/p>\n What’s more, many asset classes outside the megacaps started to outperform. Commodities had an especially good year, with gold<\/a> up more than 66%, and silver<\/a> higher by more than 165%. <\/p>\n As of Tuesday’s close, stocks were also on pace to close out a winning month. The Dow is up 1.4% in December, on pace for its eighth winning month in a row, the first such streak going back to 2018. The S&P 500 is up 0.7%, also on track for an eight month win streak. The Nasdaq is higher by 0.2%, heading for its eighth positive month in nine. <\/p>\n \u2014 CNBC’s Alex Harring and Chris Hayes contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A trader works at the New York Stock Exchange on Dec. 29, 2025. NYSE Stock Chart IconStock chart…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":482051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[68226,3453,133,64,81,91320,144,100676,135,91322,143,91321,145,211423,134,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-482050","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-alphabet-class-a","9":"tag-amazon-com-inc","10":"tag-breaking-news-markets","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-business-news","13":"tag-dow-jones-fut-sep25","14":"tag-dow-jones-industrial-average","15":"tag-gold-comex-dec25","16":"tag-markets","17":"tag-nasdaq-100-fut-sep25","18":"tag-nasdaq-composite","19":"tag-sp-500-fut-sep25","20":"tag-sp-500-index","21":"tag-silver-comex-sep25","22":"tag-stock-markets","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115813436968904605","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}