Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Dec. 11, 2025, in New York City.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images
The S&P 500 pulled back from record levels on Friday as investors continued to exit technology stocks and move into value areas of the market.
The broad market index fell 0.6%, and the Nasdaq Composite declined 1.2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was last trading around the flatline after scoring a new intraday all-time high earlier in the session.
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq were bogged down by a 10% drop in Broadcom, which some analysts think is because of margin compression worries. That’s even after the company beat fourth-quarter expectations and gave a strong forecast for the current quarter, saying artificial intelligence chip sales look to double.
As the AI trade faced more pressure, with names like Palantir Technologies and Micron seeing some losses alongside Broadcom, other areas of the market such as financials, health care and industrials received a bit of gains. In those sectors, Visa, UnitedHealth Group and GE Aerospace were winners.
Lululemon was also a winner during the session. Shares jumped 10% after the athletic apparel retailer announced that its CEO will step down at the end of January, following poor performance for the company over the past year.
Friday’s action marked another day of the rotation trade, as investors on Thursday poured into cyclical stocks that are considered more sensitive to the economy while taking profits in growth-oriented names tied to the AI trade. The move comes after the Federal Reserve on Wednesday cut interest rates for the third time this year.
Gains in Visa and UnitedHealth, along with others like Nike, propelled the Dow to close at a record in the prior session. The S&P 500 notched a new closing high as well, while the Nasdaq ended the day lower as high-flying tech stocks such as Alphabet and Nvidia dropped.
“The Dow had a great day and, if the trend continues, it could be the beginning of the broadening-out trade,” said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at Northlight Asset Management. “The key to the bull market continuing is the rest of the market (the so called 493) rising even without the help of the Magnificent 7 — and if the baton can be passed and the rally can broaden out then we wouldn’t be surprised to see a rally into year end and into the beginning of next year.”
This week, the S&P 500 is down 0.2%, while the Dow is up almost 2%. The Nasdaq is the laggard of the three major indexes, recording a 1% loss week to date. Small-capitalization companies have outperformed their larger counterparts, meanwhile, with the Russell 2000 index up more than 2% this week after notching fresh all-time and closing highs on Thursday.