Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during morning trading on January 06, 2026 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose on Thursday, while the Nasdaq Composite came under pressure as investors moved away from technology stocks.
The 30-stock Dow climbed 337 points, or 0.7%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped 0.4%. The S&P 500 hovered around the flatline. Among the 11 S&P 500 sectors, information technology was the only one with major losses, falling almost 2%.
Artificial intelligence darling Nvidia was among the names investors exited, trading down more than 2%. Fellow AI play Oracle pulled back more than 1%, as did iPhone maker Apple, which was on pace for its seventh day of losses.
While Rob Haworth, senior investment strategy director at U.S. Bank Asset Management, believes that tech and AI will remain an important theme for 2026, he thinks the trade’s status as an upside driver will be dependent on whether use cases start to arise and in what sectors.
“We’re seeing early signs of that in health care,” he said. “When we think about robotics, insurance, diagnostics, all these types of companies are going to be early beneficiaries. That’s where we think the growth story is.”
To be sure, Haworth added that the performance will need to broaden out, citing industrials and financials as two key areas to watch. He said, “Those stories are starting to look better this year, and I think that will be key for this rally to continue.”
Defense stocks were a bright spot of the day, as key names rallied after President Donald Trump called for a $1.5 trillion defense budget in 2027 — a massive increase from the $901 billion approved by Congress for 2026. Northrop Grumman jumped more than 3%, and Lockheed Martin gained around 5%. Additionally, RTX advanced more than 1%, and Kratos Defense popped more than 16%.
The S&P 500 and Dow ended Wednesday’s session in the red after touching fresh all-time highs. Those declines came as crude prices slid after Trump said that interim authorities in Venezuela will be turning over as much as 50 million barrels of oil to the U.S., prompting concerns over increasing oil supply.
Crude prices rebounded Thursday, with brent crude futures and U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude each jumping more than 2%.
