Mid-Morning Look: December 31, 2025

Mid-Morning Look

Wednesday, December 31, 2025

Index

Up/Down

%

Last

DJ Industrials

-154.15

0.32%

48,212

S&P 500

-20.70

0.30%

6,875

Nasdaq

-62.87

0.27%

23,356

Russell 2000

-6.58

0.26%

2,494

 

 

U.S. stocks slip on the open and extend declines, trading lower for a 4th straight day as traders close out a month which had huge swings in prices but remain on track for strong 2025 gains. Reminder while the U.S. stock market is open all day until 4:00, the bond market closes at 2:00 pm et. Precious metal prices (silver and gold) slid this morning after the CME Group raised margin requirements on precious metals again on Tuesday night (December 30, 2025). This was the second hike in a short period, following an earlier increase announced on December 26, 2025 (effective December 29) – still the metals are on track for big gains in 2025. The U.S. dollar, on the other hand, is on track for its worst year since 2017. Weekly Jobless Claims fell to 199,000 in the latest week, well below consensus 220,000 and down from 215,000 prior week; the 4-week moving average climbed to 218,750 from 217,000 prior week; continued claims fell to 1.866M from 1.913M prior week (prev 1.923M) and the US insured unemployment rate unchanged at 1.2%. Low trading volumes as expected, with all eleven S&P sectors currently lower on this final trading day of 2025.

 

 

Macro

Up/Down

Last

WTI Crude

0.05

58.00

Brent

0.01

61.34

Gold

-42.30

4,344.00

EUR/USD

-0.0012

1.1734

JPY/USD

0.50

156.89

10-Year Note

0.012

4.14%

 

 

Stock GAINERS

  • AXSM +17%; received formal pre-NDA meeting minutes from FDA, supporting an NDA submission for AXS-12 in narcolepsy. Based on the feedback from the FDA, the regulatory data package would be sufficient for the submission of an NDA for AXS-12. NDA submission on track for January.
  • NKE +2%; after a filing overnight showed CEO Elliott Hill bought 16,388 shares at $61.10 on 12/29 in the open market valued at $1M worth of shares. The purchase follows Apple (AAPL) CDEO Tim Cook revealing a $3M purchase of Nike shares late last week.
  • ONDS +13%; after its Ondas Autonomous Systems business unit and private Wireless solutions through Ondas Networks, today announced it has received approximately $10M in new purchase orders across its Autonomous systems portfolio.
  • VNDA +31%; shares rose after saying the FDA has approved its drug Nereus to prevent motion-induced vomiting and the company expects to launch the drug in the coming months.
  • WULF +3%; after being upgraded from Market Perform to Outperform and raised tgt to $24 from $9.50 at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods.

 

Stock LAGGARDS

  • CORT -51%; after saying the FDA has declined to approve its hormone-blocking oral therapy, relacorilant, for the treatment of a rare hormonal disorder. FDA says “it could not arrive at a favorable benefit-risk assessment for relacorilant without Corcept providing additional evidence of effectiveness”
  • CRK -2%; as natural gas producers slide with lower natural gas prices (AR, CTRA, EQT, RRC)
  • SLV -4%; as gold and silver prices pullback further from recent record highs after the CME announced raised margins again on precious metal futures (2nd time in 3 days), which has knocked prices off their peaks.

_________________________________________________________________

Market commentary provided by Hammerstone Markets, Inc, a firm separate from and not affiliated with Regal Securities. Regal Securities has not participated in the creation of the content, and does not explicitly or implicitly endorse the content.