Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Dec. 11, 2025, in New York City.
The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced on Thursday, with both hitting fresh closing records. The Russell 2000 index also ended the session at a new high, following the U.S. Federal Reserve's quarter-point cut on Wednesday.
But if investors analyze Thursday's individual stock movements, they will see not all is well with the AI play yet. Oracle shares plunged nearly 11%, a day after it reported weak quarterly revenue, higher capital expenditure and long-term lease commitments. Oracle's slide dragged down AI-related names such as Nvidia and Micron .
In extended trading, Broadcom shares fell 4.5%. The chipmaker beat Wall Street's expectations for earnings and revenue, but CEO Hock Tan appeared to have failed to address worries that their largest customer, Google , might eventually make more of its chips in-house. Rising memory prices would also pressure margins, while the company's chip deal with OpenAI might not be binding.
That's why the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 0.26% despite other major U.S. indexes hitting records. Putting the two together, that means investors are rotating out of tech into other parts of the market. The S&P 500 financials sector, for instance, closed at a fresh record, buoyed by jumps in Visa and Mastercard .
Even though the AI theme seems to be under scrutiny, other sectors are performing well on the back of a resilient U.S. economy — as signaled by Fed officials on Wednesday — and buoyed by interest-rate cut. So long as nothing throws a spanner in the works, looks like we're all set for a happy holiday season.
— CNBC's Kristina Partsinevelos contributed to this report.