US markets end mostly in green on Thursday

12 Dec 2025 Evaluate

The US markets ended mostly in green on Thursday. Dow surged after shares of Visa increased sharply as Bank of American upgraded its rating on the stock to Buy from Neutral. Further, strong gains by Nike (NKE), UnitedHealth (UNH) and American Express (AXP) contributed to the jump by the blue-chip index. On the other hand, a steep drop by shares of Oracle (ORCL) weighed on the Nasdaq, as the software giant plunged by 10.8 percent. The slump by Oracle came after the company reported fiscal second quarter earnings that exceeded street estimates but weaker than expected revenues. Other AI-related stocks like Nvidia (NVDA) also moved to the downside, potentially reflecting renewed valuation concerns. Besides, market participants remained cautious as the Labor Department released a report showing that first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits rebounded by more than expected in the week ended December 6, 2025. The report said that initial jobless claims rose to 2,36,000, an increase of 44,000 from the previous week's revised level of 1,92,000. Meanwhile, street had expected jobless claims to climb to 2,20,000 from the 1,91,000 originally reported for the previous week.

On the sectoral front, gold stocks moved sharply higher along with the price of the precious metal, with the NYSE Arca Gold Bugs Index spiking by 4.3 percent to a new record closing high. Moreover, substantial strength was visible among steel stocks, as reflected by the 2.2 percent surge by the NYSE Arca Steel Index. The index reached its best closing level in over seventeen years.

Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 646 points or 1.34 percent to 48,704.01 and S&P 500 rose 14.32 points or 0.21 percent to 6,901, while Nasdaq declined 60.3 points or 0.26 percent to 23,593.86.

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