Tech Selloff Weighs on US Stocks as Silver Plunges: Markets Wrap
(Bloomberg) — US stocks extended losses as traders pared bets on tech megacaps before the end of the year. Volatility gripped precious metals as silver retreated after touching a record high.
The S&P 500 fell 0.5%, with shares of Tesla Inc., Nvidia Corp. and Meta Platforms among the decliners. The Nasdaq 100 was off 0.6%.
“Given this week’s light economic calendar, internal momentum could be the main market storyline,” said Chris Larkin at E*Trade from Morgan Stanley. “If stocks are going to close out another year of double-digit gains on a high note, they’ll likely need tech to do much of the heavy lifting.”
The S&P 500 is up some 17% year-to-date, defying expectations for a tariff-fueled selloff even as it underperformed many global peers.
What Bloomberg strategists say…
“The dollar and the S&P 500 were expected to shine in 2025, yet the reality turned out a little different as turmoil and backtracking on tariff announcements in April briefly sank confidence in American policy. The US benchmark has had a good year, but it hasn’t convincingly beaten peers, even in tech.”
— Sebastian Boyd, Macro Strategist, Markets Live. For the full analysis, click here.
An optimistic consensus is taking hold that the rally in stocks will extend in 2026 after three straight years of gains. Despite a raft of risks spanning a potential bust in the artificial-intelligence advance to unanticipated policy shocks, sell-side strategists are forecasting another 9% average gain in the S&P 500 next year.
Strategists at Wolfe Research expect more strength in tech stocks, after the category outperformed the broader market for 11 of the past 12 years, according to their data.
“Despite this long winning streak, we believe it’s too contrarian to underweight tech in 2026 with solid fundamentals intact, fund flows favoring large cap/market weight indices, and a lack of growth in other areas of the economy,” they wrote.
Silver Selloff
Silver, meanwhile, tumbled nearly 10% to around $72 per ounce after smashing through $80 an ounce in a rally powered by speculative trades and fears of a supply shortage. Gold was down more than 4%.
Precious metals have emerged as a hot corner of financial markets in recent months, boosted by elevated central-bank purchases and inflows to exchange-traded funds. Lower borrowing costs are also acting as a tailwind for non-yielding commodities, while frictions between the US and Venezuela have added to precious metals’ safe-haven appeal.
The initial momentum for metals on Monday came after a weekend comment by Elon Musk highlighted the growing bullishness around them. Musk replied to a tweet on Chinese export restrictions by saying on X: “This is not good. Silver is needed in many industrial processes.”
Precious metals “had become quite overbought on a short-term basis, so the fact that they’re seeing some outsized declines this morning is not the end of the world at all,” according to Matt Maley, chief market strategist at Miller Tabak + Co. “We believe that any weakness in these names over the next week or two should create another good buying opportunity.”
Elsewhere, Bitcoin topped $90,000 before erasing most of its gain. A gauge of the dollar edged higher. US government bonds were stronger, with the yield on 10-year Treasuries down two basis points to 4.11%.
Oil rose as the US-led talks failed to yield a breakthrough and as China vowed to support economic growth next year. Brent crude is still on track for a fifth monthly drop in December, which would be the longest losing streak in more than two years.
Corporate News:
A Goldman Sachs Group Inc. basket of European defense stocks slid as much as 2.8% after the weekend’s talks about a peace deal for Ukraine. Shares in silver miners fell in US premarket trading as the metal retreated sharply after surging past $80 an ounce for the first time. SoftBank Group Corp. is in advanced talks to acquire DigitalBridge Group Inc., a private equity firm that invests in assets such as data centers, according to people with knowledge of the matter. DigitalBridge jumped more than 40% in premarket trading. Airbus SE is churning out aircraft at a rapid clip in the final days of the year, with confidence building at the European planemaker that it can achieve the delivery goal it was forced to cut only a few weeks ago, according to people familiar with the situation. Stocks
The S&P 500 fell 0.5% as of 12:51 p.m. New York time The Nasdaq 100 fell 0.6% The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.6% The MSCI World Index fell 0.4% Currencies
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.1% The euro fell 0.2% to $1.1752 The British pound was little changed at $1.3486 The Japanese yen rose 0.3% to 156.16 per dollar Cryptocurrencies
Bitcoin rose 0.2% to $87,680.48 Ether was little changed at $2,937.83 Bonds
The yield on 10-year Treasuries declined two basis points to 4.11% Germany’s 10-year yield declined three basis points to 2.83% Britain’s 10-year yield declined two basis points to 4.49% Commodities
West Texas Intermediate crude rose 2.2% to $58.01 a barrel Spot gold fell 4.6% to $4,324.25 an ounce This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Julien Ponthus, Subrat Patnaik, Shikhar Balwani, Isabelle Lee and Rheaa Rao.
©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
