Stock market today: Wall Street opens 2025 with more modest losses

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stock indexes slipped on Thursday as Wall Street’s weak end to last year carried into 2025.

The S&P 500 fell 0.2% to extend the four-day losing streak that dimmed the close of its stellar 2024. The index pinballed through the day between an early gain of 0.9% and a later loss of 0.9% before locking in its longest losing streak since April.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 151 points, or 0.4%, after an early gain of 360 points disappeared, and the Nasdaq composite lost 0.2%.

Tesla helped drag the market lower after disclosing it delivered fewer vehicles in the last three months of 2024 than analysts expected. The electric-vehicle company’s stock slumped 6.1%.

Tesla was one of the big winners of 2024, particularly after Donald Trump’s Election Day victory raised speculation that Elon Musk’s close relationship with the president-elect could help the company. But critics have been warning that prices all across the stock market have run too high, too quickly and are at risk of a pullback.

Consider a measure tracked by Bank of America of how heavily Wall Street analysts are recommending stocks, which recently hit its highest level since early 2022, according to strategist Savita Subramanian. She says the measure has been a reliable contrarian indicator in the past, and it’s only a bit shy of triggering a signal to sell for those who are leery when much of Wall Street herds in the same direction.

Elsewhere on Wall Street, H.B. Fuller sank 7.5% after the seller of adhesives, sealants and other specialty chemical products said it’s recently seen a slowdown in sales to a number of its customer categories.

On the winning side of Wall Street were companies tied to the energy industry after prices rose for crude oil and natural gas.

Constellation Energy jumped 8.4% for the one of the biggest gains in the S&P 500 after announcing it won more than $1 billion in combined contracts with the U.S. General Services Administration to supply power and perform energy savings and conservation measures.

Some Big Tech stocks also helped limit the market’s losses. Nvidia, whose chips are powering the world’s move into artificial-intelligence technology, rose 3% after following up its nearly 240% surge in 2023 with a better than 170% jump last year.

Some investors and analysts are counting on the AI rush to continue, even though critics say it’s made stock prices too expensive. As the calendar flips to a new year, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives says it’s the ”same tech playbook in year 3 of this tech AI driven bull market,” for example.

Some pages of the playbook do seem to be changing. Investors have ratcheted back expectations for how many cuts to interest rates the Federal Reserve may deliver in 2025, for example.

Inflation has remained stubbornly above the Fed’s 2% target, and Trump’s pushing for tariffs and other policies has raised worries about potentially more upward pressure on prices that U.S. consumers have to pay. That drove the Fed to say recently it will likely deliver fewer of the economy-juicing cuts to interest rates in 2025 than it had earlier thought.

Expectations for a string of such cuts were a major reason the S&P 500 set dozens of all-time highs last year. Until now, the economy has held up remarkably well despite the high rates brought by the Fed in recent years to stifle inflation.

Many investors expect the Fed to keep its main interest rate steady later this month, which would be the first meeting in four where it hasn't eased rates.

In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady. The yield on the 10-year Treasury edged down to 4.56% from 4.57% late Tuesday after a report said fewer U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week than economists expected. It’s the latest signal that the job market remains solid.

All told, the S&P 500 slipped 13.08 points to 5,868.55. The Dow dipped 151.95 to 43,392.27, and the Nasdaq composite lost 30.00 to 19,280.79.

In stock markets abroad, indexes fell 2.2% in Hong Kong and 2.7% in Shanghai after a survey of factory managers showed Chinese activity expanding at a slower pace in December. New orders, employment and business sentiment weakened.

Upbeat talk by Chinese leader Xi Jinping in a New Year’s address did little to raise optimism among investors who are hoping for more aggressive action to support the world’s second-largest economy and boost stock prices.

“We have adopted a full range of policies to make solid gains in pursuing high-quality development. China’s economy has rebounded and is on an upward trajectory,” Xi said in a New Year message, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

Stock indexes were mostly higher in Europe, while Japan’s market remained closed.

AP Business Writer Yuri Kageyama contributed.

Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York's Financial District Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York's Financial District Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York's Financial District Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

FILE - The New York Stock Exchange is shown in New York's Financial District on Dec. 31, 2024. American flags flew at half-staff there following the death of former U.S. president Jimmy Carter. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)

FILE - People pass the New York Stock Exchange on Nov. 5, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)

FILE - Currency traders watch monitors at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Dec. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)

FILE - A sign outside the New York Stock Exchange marks the intersection of Wall and Broad Streets, Dec. 12, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — About 150 military police officers from Central America have arrived in Haiti to reinforce the embattled government's fight against violent gangs that have upended daily life for millions in the Caribbean country.

The deployment of around 75 security officers, mostly from Guatemala, was greeted Saturday at Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince by the Kenyan commander of the U.N.-backed mission that for months has been struggling to restore order.

“The gangs have only two choices: surrender, lay down their weapons, and face justice, or face us in the field,” the officer, Godfrey Otunge, said in remarks at a welcoming ceremony. “With the addition of the Guatemalan and El Salvador forces, the gangs will have nowhere to hide. We will root them out of their enclave.”

A similar sized contingent, which also included a small number of forces from El Salvador, traveled aboard a U.S. Air Force aircraft and was greeted Friday by top Haitian officials and U.S. Ambassador Dennis Hankins.

Coordinated gang attacks on prisons, police stations and the main international airport have intensified in Haiti since the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. Gangs are estimated to control about 85% of the capital.

In what is perhaps the most brazen attack yet, gunmen opened fire on a crowd that gathered on Christmas Eve for the much-anticipated reopening of Haiti's biggest public hospital, which was closed after being rampaged by gangs earlier this year. Two journalists covering the event and a police officer were killed.

Prior to this week's deployment, the international mission seeking to quell the violence was led by around 400 security officers from Kenya. Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Benin and Chad have also pledged personnel although it isn't clear when they would be sent.

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Journalists climb up a wall to take cover from gunfire, after being shot at by armed gangs at the General Hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Tuesday, Dec. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Jean Feguens Regala)