Review Preview: Reining in Risk

Dec 17, 2025 19:55:00 -0500 by Teresa Rivas | #Markets #Review & Preview

Out in the Cold. Stocks turned lower again midweek. Blame artificial intelligence.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.5% while the S&P 500 slid 1.2% and the Nasdaq Composite lost 1.8%.

Part of the move is the broadening of the market rally: While AI accounted for the lion’s share of the gains in this bull market, investors have recently been shifting their attention elsewhere.

One beneficiary is the financial sector, which was flat on the day, and has jumped more than 6% in the past month.

“In the final weeks of late 2025, the market appears to be experiencing sector rotation…capital is exiting the technology sector while pouring into the financial sector,” write strategists at SentimenTrader on Wednesday.

The risk-averse sentiment extended to Bitcoin, while gold hit yet another new high, putting it up 65% this year.

There was one sign of risk appetite in the IPO market. Newly issued shares of Medline, a medical supply firm, soared 41% on the day after the IPO priced last night. Medline raised $6 billion in the listing, making it the largest IPO since electric vehicle maker Rivian went public in 2021.

For those waiting on the “Santa Rally,” DataTrek Co-founder Nicholas Colas offers some hope: “History suggests that the S&P 500 will make another new high before the end of the year. Since 1980, when the index has made a new high in December, those peaks usually (71%) come in the back half of the month.”

Company

Last

Chg

Chg%

Dow Jones Industrial Average

48,134.89

183.04

0.38%

S&P 500 Index

6,834.50

59.74

0.88%

NASDAQ Composite Index

23,307.62

301.26

1.31%

Market Data as of

The Hot Stock: Texas Pacific Land +7.6%
The Biggest Loser: GE Vernova -10.5%

Best Sector: Energy +2.2%
Worst Sector: Technology -2.2%

Created with Highcharts 9.0.1Wednesday, Dec. 17Index performanceSource: FactSetAs of Dec. 19, 4 p.m. ET

Created with Highcharts 9.0.1Dec. 1900.20.40.60.81.01.21.4%Nasdaq CompositeS&P 500Dow industrials

Software Santa?

It’s one week until Christmas Eve—meaning most people are in the home stretch of holiday shopping. Early data from Black Friday weekend showed that consumers were out in full force, despite ongoing concerns that inflation’s cumulative effects would keep them home.

Some of those holiday deals might not be as good as consumers think—or even as good as their neighbors are getting. As my colleague Callum Keown writes, companies are increasingly rolling out dynamic pricing based on artificial intelligence, tools that are “generating prices and offers that hinge partly on what the AI thinks you’re worth as a customer and would pay.”

It’s difficult for consumers to truly understand how this works—other than it’s probably leading them to pay more:

Consumers are in the dark about AI’s machinations. Companies are loath to discuss details of their pricing algorithms. Partly that’s for competitive reasons. A consumer and regulatory backlash is also brewing over AI being used for unfair trade practices and illegal forms of price discrimination…

If AI helped everyone gets better deals—while pumping up corporate profits—there wouldn’t be much concern. But academic studies indicate that AI-powered algorithms, working competitively, wind up raising prices for everyone. In 2019, academic researchers in Europe concluded that AI algorithms “consistently learn to charge supra-competitive prices,” resulting in tacit collusion. More recent research has found similar findings…

[A] recent study by Carnegie Mellon University business professor Param Singh and other researchers concluded that personalized rankings, using AI-algorithms, increase prices overall for consumers by an average 29%, or 13% after accounting for the economic benefits of more convenience. “When algorithms personalize how products are ranked for each user, they tend to learn to charge higher prices overall,” Singh says.

It’s enough to leave consumers feeling Scrooged.

The Calendar

Accenture, Birkenstock Holding, Cintas, Darden Restaurants, FactSet Research Systems, FedEx, Heico, and Nike report earnings tomorrow.

The Bank of England and European Central Bank announce their monetary-policy decisions.

The BOE is expected to cut its key interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 3.75% from 4%. Meanwhile the ECB is expected to leave its target rate unchanged at 2%.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the consumer price index for November. The consensus call is for a 3.1% increase from a year earlier. The core CPI, which excludes food and energy prices, is expected to rise 3% year over year. This compares with readings of 3% for both indexes in September. The October inflation data couldn’t be collected by the BLS due to the government shutdown.

What We’re Reading Today

***Barron’s Live returns on Monday.*Barron’s Live features timely and actionable insights for investors. We give you behind-the-scenes conversations with the newsroom, connecting you with our editors and reporters covering the markets, the economy, and more.