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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":2,"featured_media":379428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[38080,1540,116,28,122,63284,120,63506,112,63286,121,63285,117,181577,114,21],"class_list":["post-379427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-alphabet-class-a","tag-amazon-com-inc","tag-breaking-news-markets","tag-business","tag-business-news","tag-dow-jones-fut-sep25","tag-dow-jones-industrial-average","tag-gold-comex-dec25","tag-markets","tag-nasdaq-100-fut-sep25","tag-nasdaq-composite","tag-sp-500-fut-sep25","tag-sp-500-index","tag-silver-comex-sep25","tag-stock-markets","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}