Shares Slip in Light Trading

Stocks closed slightly lower on Friday in a quiet day of trading as investors returned from the Christmas holiday.

• The Dow fell 20.19 points, less than 0.1%, to 48,710.97, closing the week up 1.2%.
• The S&P 500 fell 2.11 points, less than 0.1%, to 6,929.94, ending the week 1.4% higher.
• The Nasdaq composite fell 20.21 points, or 0.1%, to 23,593.10, to wrap up the week with a gain of 1.2%.

Institutional investors are largely closed out of their positions for the year, so trading was extremely light, the AP reports. Trading on the New York Stock Exchange was roughly half of that on an average day. With three trading days left in 2025, the S&P 500 has climbed nearly 18% this year, helped by the deregulatory policies of the Trump administration as well as investor optimism about the future of artificial intelligence. Shares of Target rose 3.1% after the Financial Times reported that an activist investor is taking an unspecified stake in the retail giant. Almost one-third of share value has been lost this year during the retailer's sales slump, per the Times.