Stock market today: Dow rises as defense stocks jump, Nvidia leads Nasdaq down as all eyes turn to jobs report

US stocks were mixed as tech declined and investors awaited the highly anticipated monthly jobs report due out on Friday.

The Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) dropped 0.5% as megacap Nvidia (NVDA) dropped. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) closed just above the flatline, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) gained 0.5%.

Challenger, Gray & Christmas labor data released on Thursday showed the jobs market showed layoffs hit their lowest level in 17 months in December. The read came ahead of the December jobs report due out Friday morning.

Investors will be eyeing the report for clues on whether the Federal Reserve will hold rates steady, or cut them when policymakers meet later this month.

Yahoo Finance’s Ben Werschkul reports:

Read more here.

Yahoo Finance’s Emma Ockerman reports:

Read more here.

Yahoo Finance’s Jake Conley reports:

The Santa Claus rally didn’t materialize for the S&P 500 (^GSPC) this year, but investors are holding out hope that the 2026 outlook could improve thanks to two other January indicators.

After the S&P clinched its first all-time high of 2026 on Tuesday, the index is on course for a more than 1% gain in the first five trading days of the year.

A positive return during the first five trading days has historically yielded a positive return on the year about 83% of the time, dating back to 1950, according to the Stock Trader’s Almanac.

Furthermore, investors tend to watch the first five trading days as a signal of optimism for the month of January, which is seen as a more reliable seasonal indicator due to its larger sample size. Since 1928, the market has finished the year higher following a positive January return 80% of the time.

Put together, the Santa Claus rally, the first five trading days, and the January barometer are known as the “January trifecta” — a guide, but not guarantee, of market strength.

Leading the turn higher in sentiment to kick off the year have been small-cap stocks as well as materials, industrials, and healthcare stocks.

The top performers so far in 2026 are Sandisk (SNDK), up 32%; Moderna (MRNA), up 19%; LAM Research (LRCX), up 16%; Micron (MU), up 13%; and L3Harris (LHX), up 11%.

Walmart added Shishir Mehrotra, CEO of AI writing tool Superhuman, to its board of directors.

“Shishir brings a rare combination of technical depth and product leadership,” chairman of the board, Greg Penner, said in the release. “He has helped create and scale platforms that unlock creativity and productivity for people and teams at global scale. We’re excited to welcome him to our Board.”

Mehrotra will join the board’s Compensation and Management Development Committee, as well as the Technology and eCommerce Committee, which is chaired by OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar.

Mehrotra has held various executive roles at Google and also co-founded an AI platform called Coda prior to helming Superhuman. His appointment to the board comes amid a growing need for supply chain expertise in light of President Trump’s tariffs, as well as a pulse on technology as Amazon and TikTok continue to change consumers’ habits, according to TD Cowen analyst Oliver Chen.

“The skill set required for the future is not the same as the past,” Chen told Yahoo Finance. “Retail is harder than ever; it is a fiercely competitive sector.”

The announcement also comes after Walmart (WMT) announced that its CEO, Doug McMillon, will retire on Jan. 31, after a more than 10-year run leading the retail giant. McMillon will remain on the board of directors until the next annual shareholders’ meeting in early June. Walmart’s US CEO, John Furner, will succeed McMillon as the company’s next CEO.

Paramount Skydance (PSKY) reaffirmed its offer on Thursday for Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), saying that its “fully financed all-cash offer” of $30.00 per share was “superior” to the existing agreement with Netflix.

“Our offer clearly provides WBD investors greater value and a more certain, expedited path to completion,” Paramount chairman and CEO David Ellison said in the release. “Throughout this process, we have worked hard for WBD shareholders and remain committed to engaging with them on the merits of our superior bid and advancing our ongoing regulatory review process.”

Earlier this week, Warner Bros. Discovery urged its shareholders to reject the offer, citing “significant costs, risks and uncertainties” associated with the offer, even after billionaire Larry Ellison, the father of David Ellison, personally backed the bid with $40.4 billion in equity financing.

Warner Bros claimed, “The risks inherent in the LBO [leverage buyout] structure are exacerbated by the amount of debt PSKY must incur.”

That deal would include all assets of the company, including Discovery Global, with linear TV brands like TNT Sports and CNN. In June, WBD shared that it intended to spin off those assets into a separate company.

In a release, Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters reiterated Warner Bros. Discovery’s statement that its cash and stock transaction offer of $27.75 per WBD share (a total enterprise value of roughly $83 billion) was a “superior value at greater levels of certainty.”

Since Netflix announced the initial agreement on Dec. 5, shares of the streaming giant have slid about 10%, whereas Paramount has posted a nearly 7% drop.

Both deals are still subject to regulatory approval, but the Ellison family did get Skydance’s $8 billion acquisition of Paramount approved in July of last year.

Year-ahead inflation expectations ticked up to 3.4% in December from 3.2% in November and 3% in the previous year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s survey of consumer expectations released Thursday.

Longer-term inflation expectations over the three- and five-year time frames were unchanged in December from the previous month.

Other economic indicators showed consumers viewing the labor market more negatively.

The perceived probability of finding a new role in the event of losing a job fell to 43.1% in December from 47.3% in the previous month and 50.2% last year. At the same time, Americans’ perceived chances of losing their jobs ticked up to 15.2% from 13.8% in November and 11.9% in December of 2024. The probability of leaving one’s job voluntarily was roughly unchanged.

Read more here.

Yahoo Finance’s David Hollerith reports:

Read more here.

US stocks ticked lower at the market open on Thursday, as a rally to all-time highs earlier in the week lost steam.

The Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) dipped 0.2%, eyeing its first loss this week. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) fell just below the flat line, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) sank nearly 0.4%.

Bloomberg reported Thursday that China is set to approve some imports of Nvidia’s H200 chips.

Trump said the US will lift export restrictions on Nvidia’s H200 AI chips in December in exchange for a cut of its revenue, but concerns persisted that the Chinese government would not allow homegrown tech firms to purchase those chips.

Reuters reported Thursday that Nvidia will require full up-front payment from its Chinese customers for H200 chips, an unusually stringent term meant to hedge against uncertainty over whether Beijing will approve sales.

Stifel analyst Ruben Roy said in a note to clients that H200 sales to China would be “materially additive to earnings for NVDA.”

“In our view, China is a swing factor to the positive for NVDA, with sell-side and buy-side models not counting on these sales just yet.”

Shares in the chipmaker were flat in premarket trading.

December job cuts tallied 35,553, their lowest level since July 2024, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas’ report Thursday.

Still, the 1.2 million job cuts in 2025 as a whole marked a 58% increase from 2024. The government led all industries in job cuts, with more than 308,000 reductions that primarily occurred in the first quarter. Technology jobs were the most affected in the private sector, with over 154,000 reductions.

DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency), tariffs, and AI were cited as reasons for cuts in 2025, according to the report.

Read more here.

Initial unemployment insurance claims for the week of Jan. 3 rose to 208,000 from 199,000 the previous week.

The latest figure released by the Department of Labor on Thursday was below economists’ expectations for 212,000 jobless claims.

Weekly jobless claims — released with a shorter lag than other employment data, which have been particularly delayed from the government shutdown last fall — provide a timely window into the current state of the labor market.

On Wednesday, labor market data from private payroll processor ADP showed the labor market stabilizing at the end of 2025.

Yahoo Finance’s Daniel Howley is on the ground at the Las Vegas Convention Center for CES 2026, taking in the staggering number of tech announcements and perusing the gadgets on display. Here are his takeaways from tech’s biggest event of the year:

Read more here.

Palantir Technologies Inc. (PLTR) stock edged higher by 2% on Thursday after receiving a Buy rating. Executives at BofA Securities reiterated their Buy rating and $255 price target.

Apple (AAPL) stock fell 1% before the bell on Thursday after news that JPMorgan Chase (JPM) had agreed to take over the Apple credit card portfolio from its current issuer, Goldman Sachs (GS).

Globus Medical, Inc. (GMED) stocks jumped 9% during premarket trading following the preliminary release of its Q4 results and a 2026 outlook that both beat analysts’ expectations.

US defense stocks turned higher in premarket after promises and threats from President Trump sent them on a wild ride.

After market close, Trump said he wanted to boost US military spending by over 50% to $1.5 trillion, which would be funded by proceeds from tariffs.

The proposal appeared to revive investor appetite for shares of major defense contractors, which slumped on Wednesday after Trump vowed to block them from buying back shares and paying dividends until they step up production of military equipment.

Shares in Northrop Grumman (NOC) and Lockheed Martin (LMT) both popped about 7% before the bell, after closing about 5% lower on Wednesday.

RTX (RTX), singled out by Trump as particularly slow to invest in development, put on 4%, while General Dynamics (GD) was up 5%, set to retrace declines.

Shares of Big Oil companies such as Chevron (CVX), ConocoPhillips (COP), and Exxon Mobil (XOM) edged higher after meeting with the Trump administration on Wednesday in Miami after the US arrested Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro over the weekend.

Per the Financial Times, US oil companies said in the meeting that they need “serious guarantees” from Washington before they make any investments in Venezuela. This comes as President Trump urges them to back his bid to help reshape the energy sector.

Trump is also planning to hold a meeting on Friday with executives from some of the country’s biggest energy groups, where the president is expected to be quizzed on whether the administration will provide strong legal and financial guarantees before they commit capital to Venezuela, according to the FT.

Trump said earlier this week that US oil companies would be “reimbursed” if they invested in Venezuela but most executives remain cautious.

“No one wants to go in there when a random fucking tweet can change the entire foreign policy of the country,” said one private equity investor who specializes in energy.

Halliburton Company (HAL) and SLB (SLB), which both provide products and services to the energy sector, saw their shares rise on Thursday before the bell.

Read more here.

The world is set to face a critical copper (HG=F) shortage, driven by a boom in AI and defense spending, according to S&P Global.

Growth in those sectors will boost global demand by 50% by 2040, but supplies are likely to miss meeting that appetite unless there is more recycling and mining, the consultancy said.

Copper has been on a powerful rally as output gravitates to the US amid concerns that President Trump’s tariffs will dry up supply. That has sparked a bidding war with Chinese industrial buyers also dependent on the metal.

Bloomberg reports:

Read more here.

Bloomberg reports:

Read more here.