US markets wrap: Dow Jones and S&P500 snap winning streak; NASDAQ ends in green

The US markets closed mixed on Wednesday as macroeconomic data prevented on adding hopes for further easing by the Federal Reserve. The Dow Jones fell 466 points or 0.9% as Utilities, Industrial and Financial sector stocks pulled the index lower from the record high levels.

Similarly, the S&P500 index also lost 0.34% in Wednesday’s trading session, snapping the three-day winning streak. While the tech-heavy NASDAQ index closed in green with 0.1% gains, as Nvidia, Microsoft and Alphabet outperformed the broader market sentiment.

At the macro level, the JOLTS data indicated sharp declines in Job openings, while the ADP data reported a modest rise in private hiring. While the ISM services PMI jumped to 54.4 vs 52.6 in the previous month, indicating a slow but resilient economy at the aggregate level.

Alphabet, the parent company of Google now became the second biggest company by market capitalisation, as it surpassed Apple Inc on Wednesday. The feat was last achieved in 2019, when Nvidia was not even in the top five ranks. Alphabet shares have rallied over 65% in 2025, owing to its advancement in its own AI model, Gemini. On the contrary, Apple Inc. lagged in advancing in AI, which led to only 9% gains in 2025, underperforming the broader markets.

After Wednesday’s trading session, the top five most valued firms include: Nvidia at $4.6 trillion, Alphabet at $3.89 trillion, Apple Inc. at $3.85 trillion, Microsoft at $3.59 trillion and Amazon Inc. at $2.59 trillion.

On January 7, Trump signed an executive order titled “Prioritising the warfighter in defence contracting”, which targets the financial practices of defence contractors and firms. The order came after the US administration had alleged that defence companies are focusing more on ‘investor returns’ than fulfilling the defence commitments. Following the development, the defence firms in the US saw immediate declines in their share price. Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman closed with losses of almost 5% on Wednesday