Closing Bell: Chips Cool As “Mag 7” Reclaims Lead; Housing Policy Headline Hits REITs

Stocks chopped and traded mixed as leadership drifted back to the mega cap AI platforms while yesterday’s memory and storage winners paused. Long yields hovered a little above four percent and credit stayed orderly, leaving the backdrop manageable for equities.

At CES the AI story stayed front and center and kept the semiconductor complex in focus. NVIDIA (NVDA) expanded on its new Rubin rack scale platform, a six chip system built around the Vera CPU and Rubin GPU with networking and DPUs designed as one stack. AMD (AMD) continued to push its “AI everywhere” roadmap across data center and PCs, highlighting new Ryzen AI platforms and client updates. The message from Las Vegas is that 2026 spending plans still point to broad demand across GPUs, memory, networking, and AI capable PCs, even if day to day leadership rotates.

Rotation showed up on the tape. The broader chips cohort held up, but flows moved back toward the largest AI platforms and ecosystem bellwethers. Yesterday’s big movers in memory and storage — Micron (MU), Seagate (STX), and Western Digital (WDC) — gave back part of their gains. Equipment and analog and power were mixed, with Lam Research (LRCX), Texas Instruments (TXN), and ON Semiconductor (ON) tracking the factor shift, while the semi-indexes remained resilient.

Rates, commodities, and crypto added cross currents. The ten-year Treasury yield hovered near 4.18 to 4.20 percent without disorderly curve moves, while volatility stayed contained. Gold was steady and copper stayed firm on tight supply and growing data center and electrification demand. Natural gas found a bid as Henry Hub cash reclaimed the 3 dollar handle and front month futures extended an afternoon upswing. Bitcoin fell about two percent into the 91 to 92K area, which weighed on a handful of crypto exposed equities.

A policy headline created a late day pocket of downside in real estate and private equity. President Trump said the administration will move to ban large institutional investors from purchasing single family homes and will ask Congress to formalize the approach. Single family rental REITs Invitation Homes (INVH) and American Homes 4 Rent (AMH) traded lower, and private equity exposure such as Blackstone (BX) also slipped as investors weighed what can be done by executive action versus what requires legislation.

The morning’s data leaned soft landing. ADP reported an increase of 41,000 private jobs for December with annual pay up 4.4 percent, a sluggish but positive print. ISM Services surprised to the upside at 54.4, with new orders 57.9 and employment 52.0, the first expansion in that subindex in seven months. Services activity is still growing even as manufacturing lags, a mix that keeps the growth path intact and gives the Fed room to stay patient later this month.

Sectors on the day. Technology narrowed toward the mega cap AI leaders. Real Estate and parts of Financials wobbled on the housing headline. Energy and Industrials were mixed as commodities and rates chopped. Semiconductors were a tale of two tapes, with the indexes steadier while memory and storage cooled.

After the bell Notable reporters after the close include Constellation Brands (STZ), Jefferies (JEF), PriceSmart (PSMT), AZZ (AZZ) and Applied Digital (APLD).

Before the bell tomorrow watch Acuity Brands (AYI), RPM International (RPM), TD SYNNEX (SNX) and Commercial Metals (CMC).

Tomorrow’s economic lineup, Thu Jan 8 (ET). 8:30 a.m. Initial jobless claims, 8:30 a.m. U.S. trade balance, 8:30 a.m. productivity and costs, 10:00 a.m. wholesale trade inventories, 10:30 a.m. EIA natural gas storage. These releases will add texture to the labor and goods backdrop that framed today’s tape.

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