STORY: Wall Street's main indexes closed fractionally lower on Tuesday, with the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq all ticking down between a tenth and a quarter of a percent.The losses officially snuff any hopes of a Santa Claus rally, notes Brian Mulberry, client portfolio manager at Zacks Investment Management."So here we are, just one trading session left in the year. And markets are really flat. We did set that new all-time high just before Christmas, but since then we've really seen a sideways type of trend, even a slightly negative. Today is indicative of that as we started slightly higher on the indexes, and we've pulled back as the day has gone on. I think there's a couple of things in motion at the same time. One, investors are certainly looking how to reorganize their portfolios, maybe even de-risking a little bit as we start to see some bigger questions asked about what happens next going into 2026. But there's also, I think, some profit taking that's going on at the same time that's making these markets move in a little bit, you know, lighter traded volume, things, you know, kind of bounce around a little bit in the moment that we're in."Still, the S&P 500 and the Dow are set for their eighth straight month of gains, their longest monthly winning streak since 2017.Communication services shares were among the biggest gainers on the S&P 500, fueled by a more than 1% rise in Meta Platforms, after the tech giant said it would acquire Chinese-founded AI startup Manus.Information technology stocks ended slightly lower, with Apple and Nvidia edging down, while Microsoft inched up.Meanwhile, losses in Goldman Sachs and American Express weighed on the Dow.Minutes from the Federal Reserve's December meeting showed policymakers agreed to cut interest rates only after a deeply nuanced debate about the risks facing the U.S. economy.:: File The Fed next meets on January 27-28, with investors currently expecting the central bank to leave its benchmark rate unchanged.