Stocks moved lower Tuesday, giving up early gains, as Treasury yields rose after strong economic data raised questions about where interest rates are headed.
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite, which are riding two-day winning streaks, were off 0.7% and 1.5% in recent trading, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.1%. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq posted solid gains to start the week, powered by a rally in chip stocks amid optimism about booming AI-related demand.
Labor market data released this morning showed that there were far more job openings in the U.S. in November than economists had expected. The Job Openings and Labor Turnover report comes ahead of the highly anticipated December jobs report, which is slated for release on Friday and will provide a more-current view of the employment situation. Market participants are closely attuned to labor market numbers as they look for information that could influence the Federal Reserve’s decision-making on interest rates.
The yield on 10-year Treasurys, which is sensitive to expectations about where interest rates are headed, jumped to 4.69%, up from 4.62% at Monday’s close and trading at its highest levels since April.
Among stocks on the move, shares of AI chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA) were down more than 5%. The stock had jumped nearly 3% in the opening minutes of trading, hitting an all-time high, after CEO Jensen Huang provided several noteworthy technology updates during his keynote address at the CES 2025 conference in Las Vegas last night. The stock was down slightly recently.
Shares of memory chip maker Micron (MU), which led the rally yesterday with a 10% gain, were up another 4% today after Huang cited the company in his presentation when discussing Nvidia’s new gaming chips.
Other large-cap tech stocks were lower across the board. Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOGL) Amazon (AMZN), Meta Platforms (META), Tesla (TSLA) and Broadcom (AVGO) all lost ground.
In other markets, bitcoin was trading at $98,000, down from an overnight high of $102,700. The digital currency moved above the $100,000 level yesterday for the first time in nearly three weeks.
Gold futures were up 0.7% at around $2,665 an ounce, while WTI crude oil futures also rose about 1%.