STORY: U.S. stocks ended the year on a down note Wednesday.
The Dow fell about six tenths of one percent while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq dropped about three-quarters of one percent each.
However for 2025, the Dow added about 13%, the S&P 500 climbed 16.4% and the Nasdaq jumped 20.4%.
The major indexes advanced by double-digits for the third consecutive year, a run last seen during 2019-2021.
Wall Street made a stellar comeback from April’s lows when Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs sparked a meltdown in global markets, sent investors away from U.S. stocks and threatened growth by clouding the interest rate outlook.
A rally in AI-related shares drove stocks higher with bellwether chipmaker Nvidia up 39% year-to-date, becoming the first publicly-traded company to hit a $5 trillion market valuation.
Dennis Follmer, chief investment officer with Montis Financial says he thinks these technology stocks are in a bubble but it may not deflate for a couple of more years.
“So this whole year has been sort of what I call a low quality rally where speculation in a lot of places has won out over profitability and earnings. So I think there’s definitely some undeniable signs of market euphoria. That doesn’t mean it can’t last for another couple of years. But I think what it does mean is that price matters. The price you pay for an investment matters. So you know, history would tell us if we’re buying the S&P 500 at these current valuations, we really shouldn’t be expecting to see a lot in terms of returns for the next 5 or 10 years.”
Stocks on the move Wednesday included Nike which gained four percent after an SEC filing showed CEO Elliott Hill bought about $1 million dollars of stock on Monday.
And Vanda Pharmaceuticals surged 25.5% after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved its drug for the prevention of motion-induced vomiting.
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