MARKET SNAPSHOT

U.S. stock indexes fell, lead by a tech selloff. Treasury yields staged a big retreat, pulling back after the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield climbed to its highest level since late May. Oil rose slightly, pressured by natural gas prices, which surged on new forecasts for a much colder January. Gold prices fell slightly and the dollar was flat.

MARKET WRAPS

EQUITIES

A year-end tech selloff rattled markets for a second straight session.

Major U.S. stock indexes slumped. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 1.2%, leading the day's declines. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid roughly 1%, and the S&P 500 declined about 1.1%.

With the year wrapping up on Tuesday, many investors are likely trimming risk from their portfolios and locking in gains for the year. Through Monday, the S&P 500 is up 24% in 2024, on pace for its best year since 2021. The Nasdaq Composite is up 30% over the same period.

Earlier Monday, Chinese shares ended mixed as investors were awaiting China's December PMI data, due Tuesday.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index edged up 0.2%, the Shenzhen Composite Index shed 0.3%, and ChiNext Price Index inched up 0.1%. Bank stocks were among the top gainers.

Japan's Nikkei Stock Average ended 1% lower, dragged by falls in auto and tech stocks, in thin year-end trading. The benchmark index rose 19% this year.

Stocks in Australia slipped, as the S&P/ASX 200 Benchmark Index declined 0.3%, snapping a three-day winning streak. The blue-chip S&P/ASX 20 Index, which includes the country's major banks and iron-ore miners, also declined 0.3%.

New Zealand's S&P/NZX 50 ended higher for a fifth consecutive trading session, adding 0.5%. The index got support from gains in utilities and healthcare stocks.

COMMODITIES

Oil futures settle modestly higher, backed by cold weather coming to the Northeast to lift natural-gas and heating fuel demand.

West Texas Intermediate crude for February delivery gained 0.6% to settle at $70.99 a barrel. February Brent crude, the global benchmark, rose by 0.3% to settle at $74.39 a barrel.

A sharp spike in natural-gas prices led crude-oil higher, according to Mike O'Rourke, chief market strategist at Jones Trading. Traders blamed a couple of different factors, including expectations for colder temperatures in the U.S. and Europe, as well as the imminent expiration of a deal allowing Russian liquefied natural gas to be transported to Europe through Ukraine.

Front-month January gold futures settled the day down 0.5% to $2,606.10 an ounce.

TODAY'S TOP HEADLINES

U.S. Pending Home Sales Rose in November

Pending homes sales in the U.S. grew for the fourth straight month in November to return to the highest level since early 2023, the National Association of Realtors said Monday.

The NAR's index of pending sales increased by 2.2% last month to reach an index level of 79, the greatest since February of last year. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal were expecting a smaller 0.7% increase.

Pending sales improved by the most in the South, where they grew by 5.2%. In the West, they grew by 0.5%, and in the Midwest by 0.4%. Northeast pending sales fell by 1.3% in November.

Major Exchanges to Close Jan. 9 to Honor Death of Jimmy Carter

The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq separately plan to close their markets on Jan. 9 to honor the death of former President Jimmy Carter.

The exchanges separately said Monday that their equity and options markets would be closed next Thursday for a national day of mourning. Carter died Sunday in Plains, Ga., at the age of 100.

Nasdaq said it observed a moment of silence at 9:20 a.m. ET Monday and issued a message on the Nasdaq Tower in New York honoring the former president.

A Record-Shattering $1 Trillion Poured Into ETFs This Year

Investors plowed more than $1 trillion into U.S.-based exchange-traded funds in 2024, shattering the previous record set three years ago and raising Wall Street hopes for an even bigger year ahead.

The rebound from last year's lackluster flows marked a broad embrace of U.S. assets in a year in which the S&P 500 gained around 25%, analysts said. Longer-term trends also played a role as investors extended a yearslong practice of swapping their mutual funds for the greater tax advantages and easy trading of ETFs.

Total assets in U.S.-based ETFs reached a record $10.6 trillion at the end of November, according to monthly ETFGI data, an increase of more than 30% from the start of 2024.

IBM's Planned $6.4 Billion HashiCorp Takeover Faces U.K. Antitrust Scrutiny

The U.K.'s antitrust watchdog said it was considering whether International Business Machines' planned $6.4 billion takeover of HashiCorp would affect competition.

The Competition and Markets Authority said on Monday that it was inviting comments from interested parties by Jan. 16. The regulator set a provisional Feb. 25 deadline to decide whether to clear the deal or refer it for a further in-depth investigation.

IBM said in April that it agreed to buy HashiCorp, extending the tech company's push into cloud and artificial intelligence as those offerings drive growth. San Francisco-based HashiCorp makes tools and products that help its customers set up cloud infrastructure.

BlackRock Cuts Back on Board Diversity Push in Proxy-Vote Guidelines

BlackRock has toned down the language in guidance it gives companies on the racial and gender diversity it seeks on their boards in the U.S.

The framework, published earlier this month by BlackRock in its annual report on proxy-voting guidelines for 2025, is closely tracked by companies, other large shareholders, and corporate governance experts.

UnitedHealth's Army of Doctors Helped It Collect Billions More From Medicare

Like most doctors, Nicholas Jones prefers to diagnose patients after examining them. When he worked for UnitedHealth Group, though, the company frequently prepared him a checklist of potential diagnoses before he ever laid eyes on them.

UnitedHealth only did that with the Eugene, Ore., family physician's Medicare Advantage recipients, he said, and its software wouldn't let him move on to his next patient until he weighed in on each diagnosis.

The diagnoses were often irrelevant or wrong, Jones said. UnitedHealth sometimes suggested a hormonal condition, secondary hyperaldosteronism, that was so obscure Jones had to turn to Google for help. "I needed to look it up," he said.