Dow ticks higher, but Nasdaq struggles as traders rotate out of tech

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.”