Stocks opened higher to start the final full trading week of 2025, but were in the red by mid-morning amid pressure from several artificial intelligence (AI) names.
Market participants also took a cautious stance ahead of this week's jam-packed economic calendar, which kicks off in earnest tomorrow with the release of the November jobs report.
At the close, the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.09% at 48,416, the broader S&P 500 was off 0.2% at 6,816, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was 0.6% lower at 23,057.
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Mega-cap AI stocks Oracle (ORCL, -2.7%) and Broadcom (AVGO, -5.6%) continued their post-earnings slides.
"Worries are mounting that the significant investments committed to the modern technology's infrastructure and the associated profitability may pale in comparison to the remarkable valuation expansion that has occurred among AI-related companies," says José Torres, senior economist at Interactive Brokers.
These concerns have investors reallocating money to other value-oriented corners of the market, such as financials and industrial stocks. Today, it was health care stocks that outperformed, with drugmakers Bristol Myers Squibb (BMY, +3.6%) and Eli Lilly (LLY, +3.4%) finishing near the top of the S&P 500.
ServiceNow sinks on M&A news, fresh Sell rating
On the negative side of the ledger was ServiceNow (NOW). Shares plunged 11.5% to make NOW the worst S&P 500 stock on Monday after Bloomberg reported over the weekend that the AI-powered enterprise platform is in talks to buy cybersecurity startup Armis for $7 billion.
Additionally, the tech stock was downgraded to Underweight (Sell) from Sector Weight (Neutral) at KeyBanc. Analyst Jackson Ader says there have been signs in IT employment data that "lead us to believe there is a more substantial risk that the [AI-related] 'Death of SaaS' [software-as-a-service] narrative" will "come for ServiceNow in the coming quarters."
Wall Street generally has an upbeat outlook for NOW. Of the 46 analysts covering ServiceNow who are tracked by S&P Global Market Intelligence, 32 say it's a Strong Buy, nine have it at Buy, four rate it at Hold and there's just one Sell rating. This works out to a consensus Strong Buy recommendation.
Separately, ServiceNow will complete a 5-for-1 stock split after Wednesday's close. Based on NOW's current price of $765.20, shares will begin trading closer to $153 at Thursday's open.
November jobs data kicks off busy stretch of economic reports
There were a couple of economic reports released on Monday, including the Empire State Manufacturing Index – a measure of business activity in New York state – which came in much lower than expected.
"The composition of the report was mixed-to-weak, as the new orders and shipments components declined while the employment component edged up," say Goldman Sachs economists.
But the real action picks up Tuesday morning with the release of the November jobs report, delayed due to the record-long government shutdown.
"The Fed continues to stress that data will dictate its decisions about additional rate cuts, and this week is delivering a truckload of data," says Chris Larkin, managing director of Trading and Investing at E*TRADE from Morgan Stanley. "With the Fed still appearing to be more focused on labor-market weakness than inflation, we're likely facing a 'bad news is good' scenario for the jobs report."
Barclays economists believe that October payrolls, which will be included in the report, will come in flat vs September and that November's data will show the addition of 50,000 new jobs. They also believe the unemployment rate edged up to 4.5%.
On Thursday, Wall Street will get the November Consumer Price Index (CPI) report, which is "unlikely to be seen as a 'clean' read on inflation" due to missing October data, says Barclays economist Pooja Sriram.
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