Stocks Drift Lower To End Solid 2025; Tesla, Taiwan Semi, Palantir In Focus

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0:40Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Stock Market Today for Wednesday, December 31st, 2025. My name is Ken Shreve. Yes, this is the final trading day of 2025. Not the best day for the stock market today. We did end near session lows, fourth straight day of losses. We'll talk about the stock market today. Before we do that, let me bring on our news editor, Ed Carson, who's got three stocks to watch as usual. Good afternoon, Ed. Yeah, we're going to take a look at a few names. We're going to take a look at Tesla, Taiwan Semiconductor, and Palantir. Okay, three stocks to watch. Before we do that, let's just take a look at the indexes here because, again, we were waiting for this Santa Claus rally ad, and it just did not materialize.

1:35Technically, we've got two days left for this Santa Claus rally to materialize. The market is going to be closed tomorrow for New Year's Day, and then we've got two trading days left for the Santa Claus rally, Friday, January 2nd, and then Monday the 5th. But let's take a look at the NASDAQ composite here, Ed. Not a great close. We're down about close to eight-tenths of a percent from the day. We've got the NASDAQ testing its 50-day moving average. Take a look at the S &P 500. That is not quite testing its 50-day line. Testing its short-term moving averages, though, that was down six-tenths of a percent.

2:16Small caps, Russell 2000. That was the lagging index at this point. That was down four days in a row, coming close, close right above the 50-day moving average. And then the Dow Jones Industrial Average, that was down a half a percent, stopped right above the 21-day moving average. So, Ed, we had some decent news in the chip sector between NVIDIA. Taiwan Semiconductor. NVIDIA actually looks like it turned lower by the close today. Actually, it was higher a little bit. That reversed lower. TSM, which makes chips for Taiwan Semiconductor, that ended higher by 1.5%, but closed near its session low.

3:07So not a great day for the NASDAQ, not a great end to the year. Frankly, what do you make of this four days of losses for the NASDAQ as the year winded down here? Yeah, the first few days didn't seem so bad. I mean, you know, that's OK. You're having a few light volume declines. All right, whatever. But today, you're starting to see the indexes come under. It was somewhat bigger losses for the major indexes, and it's getting down to those levels. The NASDAQ, just a fraction below the 50-day line. The S &P below its 21-day line. Russell getting close to its 50-day line. Some leading stocks, including that we're going to look at a couple that showed just some struggling.

3:46They're just sort of – it's nothing like this massive – I mean, yes, you're going to see there's some stocks that sold off hard. But it wasn't like this massive sell-off on any day or individual names. It's just coming down, coming down. And now it's at a point where it's like, yeah, it's starting to be a little bit worrisome. I mean, especially for people who made buys in recent days, a lot of stocks are underwater from those buys from the last week or two or three. And that was pretty good news before the open today that NVIDIA, you know, President Trump is going to allow NVIDIA to sell their AI chips, the H200 chips, to some Chinese companies.

4:24And NVIDIA told Taiwan Semiconductor to, you know, they're probably going to need to ramp up production for these chips. And Taiwan Semiconductor was up nicely. And again, it ended up 1.5%, but couldn't hold on to a strong gain. And NVIDIA actually reversed a little bit lower. So, yeah, we're in a low volume period of time for the market. But NVIDIA just couldn't hold on to that game. You mentioned the S &P 500. That is holding its 21-day moving average. Again, the Russell 2000, that's the lagging index at this point, but that's a little further off its highs than the other indexes at this point.

5:08Still looking close to a test of the 50-day moving average. And then the Dow Jones Industrial Average, that was down the least at this point, the test of the 21-day moving average. QQEW, this is the equal-weighted version of the NASDAQ 100. Breath in the market today wasn't great. It was about 2 to 1 negative on the NASDAQ. You can see QQEW here. That is right at the 50-day moving average, the equal-weighted RSP. The breadth was a little weaker, I think, on the New York Stock Exchange today. This was a break for SRSP below the 21-day moving average. Last I checked, breadth on the New York Stock Exchange was almost 3-to-1 negative.

5:56So not a great day of breadth on the New York Stock Exchange either. Taking a look at some of the ETFs in the technology sector, SMH, that is still holding above support levels today that did reverse lower for a loss of about nine tenths of a percent and then the software ETF IGV this holds names like Palantir which we'll look at in a little bit look at this name kind of testing the testing the 200 day moving average so this I think Microsoft is a top holding of IGV as well. So really some beaten down tech names that are top holdings here. CRM is another top holding of IGV. And then what do you make, Ed, of the volatility in the metals into the end of the year?

6:52Just some tremendous volatility. SLV today, silver. I think silver bullion was down another 9 % today. I mean, just crazy volatility in silver. Look at SLV today was down 6.6%. Lots of volatility after a huge run. Yeah, a huge run. I mean, a huge run, then a pause, then a huge run. I mean, it's like I think it rose something like 140 % for the year silver futures. That's just stunning. I mean, that's just a stunning move. And, yeah, so, I mean, this kind of volatility, it's only now testing. The ETF is only testing the Tente line. It's just, you know. Unbelievable. This is why you don't buy extended, and you also have to, at some point, if you've ridden this kind of gain, you might want to consider taking some profits.

7:39I mean, just because it's gone on such a run, it could easily pull back to the 21-day line or more. Without meaning, I know that there are reasons for the move, and maybe those reasons will propel it further. But, yeah, that's pretty wild stuff. And the metals in general have been so hot lately. it's it's a really that is where the action in the stock market has been just in in recent days gold not as volatile as silver so gold today was trading around 4300 announced announced GLD coming down to the 21 day moving average that was gold GLD was down about six tenths of a percent seven-tenths of a percent, but platinum today was down 10 percent, and copper basically in line with gold today down about one and a half percent.

8:30We had the gold miner GDX. That broke out recently, has come back, testing the 21-day moving average. We're the Hartford, with decades of experience insuring millions of unique small businesses. When it comes to your small business insurance, Thank you. One size absolutely does not fit all. Get a quote or find an agent today at thehartford.com slash small business. All right. Well, let's start with Tesla because they've got a big news event coming. When we come back from New Year's Day on Thursday, we're going to be getting Q4 delivery data from Tesla on Friday, correct? Yeah, we'll get Q4 full year delivery data.

9:14We'll also get the energy storage data. And deliveries will be weak. How weak, you know, it's sort of like, this sort of depends. We don't know exactly. Energy storage should be a new record. So that's a positive. But still, the ED business is still the bulk of the business. And then the other thing is that in a few hours, the deadline for unsupervised robotaxis presumably will have expired. I know there's some videos out there showing maybe some empty Model Ys driving. It's still not clear exactly what the conditions are on that. And it may be, you know, but when will they actually do unsupervised?

9:47I mean, it'll be, you know, nobody's going to demand that they have it out right away. Everybody knows Elon time. But still, when you say three weeks away, I mean, it's one thing to say, I want to be a fire. I want to be a fireman when I'm, you know, when I'm a big boy. And it's another thing to say, I'll be by the office later today and you don't show up. It's like, you know, you know, at some point, you know, it's just like, you know, this is not far off. It really should be ready. but we'll see how the market reacts to those things. We'll also get China EV sales maybe on New Year's Day. You know, none of those stocks are doing well.

10:22But Tesla, I mean, it's pulled back a fair amount. I mean, it's like, look, it's not anything really unusual. Obviously, we're seeing that with a lot of stocks. It's fallen below the cup-based buy point, which is there on a weekly chart, but you can see it, the 474 was right there. And then it's more obvious on a daily, there was sort of an early entry, and almost handle that it cleared. That might have been the best entry, but it's below that. So either you're down 5 % or more on the buy point or round-tripped, I don't know, 7 % or 8 % gain. I think investors would want to be thinking about at least have pulled back a little bit, you know, in recent buyers, not people who have a longer position, but recent buyers, given that there's big news that could swing it.

11:09I mean, it could be very positive news. I mean, that definitely can happen. But it's like we talk about not wanting – if you're not up on a position going into earnings, you know, there's a couple of big news events. I think everybody knows that self-driving, whenever that moment comes one way or the other, is that that is so crucial to the stock. So anyway, those two pieces of news, the stock isn't doing particularly well. It's not broken by any means. It could certainly rebound, repair itself. But I think it's having a little tough stretch. Yeah, well, no doubt. It'll be a nice headline for investors to come back to Friday morning.

11:48So we'll keep an eye on Tesla Friday morning. Coming down to a key support level here, this red line here, the 50-day moving average, six straight losses coming into Friday's session. We'll see if it can get a bounce on that Q4 delivery data. All right. But, well, we have after Tesla, let's take a look at TSM, which we looked at earlier. And why don't we just go over the headline again between Tesla and Taiwan Semiconductor. I mentioned it quickly, but obviously Taiwan Semiconductor is the world's largest semiconductor foundry. And NVIDIA is a big customer of Taiwan Semi, along with just about every other large cap technology company out there.

12:32Yeah. And I mean, we've known that, you know, the Trump administration said it's OK to be selling, you know, to sell these. And I don't know if Beijing has given the official OK, but I think the assumption is that they that that they'll buy this. So these are not the greatest Blackwell chips, but these are like the chips from before the prior generation. But I think people expected strong demand and that Taiwan Semi would be making them. So to some extent, if the stock had been flat or down, you know, just completely ignored the news, I don't think anybody would have been that surprised. But still, it's sort of moving back toward highs.

13:06You know, do you still count the 3, 10, 1, 12 in another week and a half or so? At the end of next week, the current pattern is in what I think will be a flat base. So, I mean, that would be another thing. But this is making progress, a lot of techs are not. And it's not making a lot of progress this week, but it's up a little bit. It was up last week. So, that's positive to see. Next week, it's going to be reporting sales, you know, and then the following week after that, it'll be reporting earnings. Plus, two of its biggest customers, NVIDIA and AMD, will be doing big presentations at CES in Las Vegas next week.

13:48So there's a lot of things that can move Taiwan Semi in the next several days. But this one, again, this one has just been doing well. The ReloStrength line isn't too far from highs. A lot of other stocks are struggling to hold on to support. This is moving from support. So it's just showing a little bit of strength, certainly in the tech field. And just looking at the fundamentals, too, here, you know, we wonder how these stocks, you know, go from$80 to$300 a share. Look at the fundamentals of Taiwan Semiconductor. You look at their earnings growth in recent quarters, just tremendous growth. And, you know, the comparisons are eventually going to get difficult.

14:28So you can see the bottom line growth is going to slow. But a lot of that is due to difficult comparisons. The top line growth has been very, very impressive as well at Taiwan Semiconductor. So lots of financial metrics coming up for TSM. We'll see how this stock trades going forward. All right, let's take a look at Palantir, another fundamental superstar in the market, known for delivering really strong earnings and revenue every quarter they report. But this is another top-rated growth stock that has come under selling pressure down four days in a row, and it really did not make much of an effort to find support at the 50-day moving average here today.

15:14Stock was down 1.7%. Volume has completely dried up along with the broad market here, but showing some weak technical action here. Yeah, it's sort of interesting. One nice thing is it wasn't all at once. So if you wanted to scale out, boy, this gave you an opportunity because the first times it goes to the 10-day line, then it goes to the 21-day line, then it goes to the 50-day line. And now it's below that. So I mean, maybe, you know, so certainly after, you know, like, you know, starting this week as it started falling below the buy point and getting below the 21-day line, I think investors should have been maybe thinking about scaling back.

15:47And I think at the lows, it was like 6.9 % below the buy point. So technically it didn't hit the 7 % 8 % sell rule. But I mean, it was basically there. And when you're essentially decisively below the 50-day line, that's another mark. I think investors should have been wanting to be cutting back somewhat. And I think actually on a weekly, it has its own difference. I think on a daily, you can sort of see that the recent highs might be a new handle. And I think on a weekly, that is the case. That is actually what the handle is on a weekly or something similar to that. It's actually 198, so it gets a little confusing.

16:23But yeah, that might be what people should be looking at going forward. Yeah, the fundamentals are amazing. The fundamentals are amazing. There's been at least six quarters, I think, of acceleration on both sides. So you've got nothing to complain about there. Obviously, it's got an extremely high valuation, so it needs to deliver, keep delivering. You know, but I think that you do, but you do have to, you know, sell on technicals and just wait for another opportunity perhaps with this name. Yeah, no doubt about it. No doubt about it. Okay, well, let me stop my share here. Big New Year's plans tonight.

17:08Ed, you're one of these guys I know that stays up till midnight, going to be ringing that New Year's bell, huh? You know, the first New Year's I spent with my wife, one of us was sick. I can't even remember which one. And that sort of set the stage. We don't want anything to do with New Year's Eve. And we were just sick, not sick from the drinking. So hopefully I'll be long asleep. But I'm sure you'll be up partying. Well, I don't know about that. But I want to wish you and Stacey and family a happy New Year. Thank you. all right and uh all right well we will uh we will see you back uh back on friday and thank you thank you very much uh everyone for for washing uh for watching and we will be off tomorrow for new year's day i want to wish everybody a very very happy happy new year we will be back for a full day of trading on friday so until then have a great rest of the day have a very safe uh have a very safe evening tonight and enjoy the rest of the day.

18:14And Justin and Webby will be back here Friday afternoon after a full day of trading for another Stock Market Today video. So enjoy the rest of the day and we will see you back here on Friday. Take care, everybody.

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