Stock Market Live December 16: S&P 500 (VOO) Slips After Jobs Report, Ford F-150 Cancelation

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BLS data show job losses in October, job gains in November.
Ford Motor announced last night it will cease production of its electric F-150 Lightning truck.
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Apple Gets More Complicated

Dec 16, 2025 at 11:47 AM EST

Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) plans to expand its menu of iPhone options in 2027, as The Information reports. The tech company offers five different iPhone models today, but within a couple years could have seven different devices on the market, including iPhones with curved glass screens, and even a foldable iPhone.

Apple’s presumably aiming to attack separate segments of the mobile market separately. But investors aren’t convinced that making the decision to buy an iPhone even more complicated is necessarily a good idea.

Apple stock is down 0.2%, which isn’t great. But at least it’s better than the 0.4% decline on the broader Vanguard S&P 500 ETF today.

Southwest Gets Some LUV on Wall Street

Dec 16, 2025 at 11:21 AM EST

Barclays analyst Brandon Olgenski upgraded Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV) to overweight with a $56 price target this morning.

“For many years, Southwest Airlines maintained a ‘one size fits all’ pricing strategy,” explains Olgenski, “despite the industry’s shift to branded fares and a la carte pricing at entry point levels of the market.”

Now however, “the airline has rapidly adapted the sale of basic fares, assigned seating, extra legroom options and the previously implemented bag fees,” and “we expect the carrier to see material improvement in relative revenue generation, especially in early 2026 as extra legroom and assigned seating options go live.”

How much improvement? “We see Southwest EPS as likely to exceed $4 in 2026 and north of $6 in 2027, driving our revised estimates 60% and 70% above current consensus respectively (we go to $4.50 in 2026 and $6.10 for 2027 and also raise our price target as a result).”

With most analysts forecasting no more than $2.77 per share in 2026 earnings for Southwest, this is a bold prediction by Barclays. Investors love it, and the stock is up 2.7%.

UBS Keeps Ford in Neutral

Dec 16, 2025 at 9:31 AM EST

Wall Street’s first reaction to Ford’s F-150 news is already out. This morning, UBS analyst Joseph Spak reiterated his neutral rating and $12.50 price target on Ford stock.

“The majority of [Ford’s $19.5 billion write-down] will be in 4Q25… We see this as a bold action and write down that likely removes years of future losses. However, Ford is not turning away from EVs (BEVs and EREVs) just using new platforms. So the risk is still will NA consumers want a BEV small pickup (starting in 2027 built off the Universal EV Platform (UEV) and an EREV F-150.”

Which reminds me — that was the other part of Ford’s announcement. While cutting the F-150 Lightning, Ford also said it will be doubling down on production of smaller EVs, including an all-electric midsize truck. (An electric Ranger, perhaps?)

Let’s just hope that one sells better than the F-150 Lightning did.

The market just opened, with Ford stock up 1% and the Voo down 0.2%.

This article will be updated throughout the day, so check back often for more daily updates.

The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: VOO) is down 0.1% premarket Tuesday morning, after the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported shutdown-delayed nonfarm payrolls figures for October, and also for November. The data show a 105,000 decline in employment for October, followed by 64,000 jobs gained in November.

In each case, the numbers were better than economists had forecast. October job losses, for example, were supposed to be 108,000 before this data came out, and November job gains were supposed to be only 45,000.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that U.S. unemployment has risen to 4.6%, the highest level since September 2021, and underemployment is now at 8.7%, the highest since August 2021. BLS also warned that the jobs effects of the longest government shutdown in history may linger “for several months.”

EV news

The other big news this morning actually came out last night: Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) is canceling its F-150 Lightning all-electric truck.

“The last couple of months have been really clear to us,” explained Ford CEO Jim Farley. “The very high-end EVs — the $50,000, $70,000, $80,000 vehicles — they just weren’t selling.”

Accordingly, Ford plans to go “where the market is, not where people thought it was going to be, but where it is today.” And that means Ford will be scaling back plans to focus on now-unsubsidized EVs, and focus instead on what it calls “EREVs” — extended-range electric vehicles, which will be trucks with batteries and electric motors, but also gas-powered engines that can re-charge the batteries to enable trips as long as 700 miles on a full battery, and full tank.

Ford anticipates that over the next five years, it will shift production from about 17% hybrids and EVs today, to 50% hybrids, EVs, and EREVs by 2030. In the meantime, Ford will be taking a $19.5 billion charge to earnings as it restructures and refocuses.

Ford stock is up 0.6% pre-market.