New Delhi, Dec. 29 -- S&P 500, Gold Futures Tumble as Wall Street Braces for Tariff Tempest and Fed Shadows in Holiday-Thinned Trading.

In the thinning air of a holiday-shortened trading week, Wall Street's major indexes edged lower on Monday, capping off a year of wild swings with a cautious close that belied the deeper anxieties simmering beneath the surface. The S&P 500 slipped 0.4 percent to 5,982.32, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 0.2 percent, or 112 points, to end at 42,345.68. The Nasdaq Composite, ever sensitive to tech's fortunes, dipped 0.6 percent, retreating from recent highs as investors weighed the ghosts of 2025's tariff wars and the Federal Reserve's inscrutable path forward.

The session unfolded against a b...