US stocks drift ahead of Tuesday's jobs report
[December 16, 2025] By
STAN CHOE
NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street drifted through a quiet day of trading on
Monday, ahead of economic reports this week that could drive where
interest rates go.
The S&P 500 slipped 0.2%, though the majority of stocks within the index
rose. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 41 points, or 0.1%, and
the Nasdaq composite fell 0.6%.
Helping to keep indexes in check were stocks in the
artificial-intelligence industry, which were mixed following last week’s
scary swings.
Nvidia, the chip company that’s become the face of the AI boom, added
0.7%. It was one of the strongest forces pushing upward on the S&P 500
after dropping 4.1% last week.
But Oracle sank another 2.7% following its 12.7% tumble last week, which
was its worst in more than seven years. Broadcom fell 5.6%.
AI stocks have been shaky on worries that the billions of dollars
flowing into chips and data centers may not produce a big-enough payoff
to make it worth it. The doubts are causing cracks for the industry,
whose earlier surges was the main driver for the U.S. market’s rally to
records.
Besides AI, the main focus on Wall Street this week will be on what
several big updates on the U.S. economy’s health say.
On Tuesday will come the jobs report for November, and economists expect
it to show employers added 40,000 more jobs than they cut during the
month. Thursday will bring an update on the inflation, and economists
expect it to show U.S. consumers paid prices that were 3.1% higher in
November than a year before.
Such data is under the microscope because the Federal Reserve is trying
to figure out if a slowing job market or high inflation is the bigger
problem for the economy. The Fed is in a potentially tough spot because
fixing one of those problems by moving interest rates would likely
worsen the other in the short term.
The hope on Wall Street is that the job market weakens, but only by a
little: enough to get the Fed to lower interest rates but not so much
that a recession swamps the economy. Wall Street loves lower rates
because they can give a boost to the economy and prices for investments,
even if they also may worsen inflation.
“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,” according to Chris Larkin, managing
director, trading and investing, at E-Trade from Morgan Stanley.
“As long as the numbers don’t suggest employment is falling off a
cliff,” that would mean the market would likely welcome soft numbers, he
said.
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Specialists Alex Weitzman, left, and Meric Greenbaum work on the
floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025. (AP
Photo/Richard Drew)
 The spotlight will be brightest on
the unemployment rate, not the overall job growth numbers, because
the latter is feeling downward pressure from a drop-off in immigrant
workers. Economists expect Tuesday’s report to show the unemployment
rate at 4.4%, which would keep it near its highest and worst level
since 2021.
Treasury yields eased a bit ahead of the updates. A
report earlier on Monday morning also said that a measure of
manufacturing strength in New York state unexpectedly weakened, when
economists expected to see continued growth.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 4.18% from 4.19% late
Friday.
Elsewhere on Wall Street, shares of iRobot tumbled nearly 73% to
$1.18 after the maker of Roomba vacuums said holders of its stock
will likely face a total loss after it filed for Chapter 11
bankruptcy protection over the weekend. The company has reached an
agreement with its primary contract manufacturer, Picea, to buy it
through a process supervised by a U.S. bankruptcy court.
All told, the S&P 500 slipped 10.90 points to 6,816.51. The Dow
Jones Industrial Average dipped 41.49 to 48,416.56, and the Nasdaq
composite fell 137.76 to 23,057.41.
In stock markets abroad, indexes rose in Europe following weaker
finishes in Asia.
Indexes fell 1.3% in Hong Kong and 0.6% in Shanghai after the
Chinese government reported a drop in investment in factory
equipment, infrastructure and other fixed assets. It’s the latest
signal that demand in the world’s second-largest economy remains
weak.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 sank 1.3% after a quarterly survey of big
manufacturers by the central bank showed a slight improvement in
sentiment. That could encourage the Bank of Japan to go ahead with a
hike to interest rates.
___
AP Business Writer Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
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