Broker Check
REQUEST A MEETING
WP Weekly Insight (11/15 - 11/21)

WP Weekly Insight (11/15 - 11/21)

December 04, 2025

WP Weekly Insight (11/15 - 11/21)

Market Recap & Snapshot

  • [1]The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite each dropped 1.3% on Monday, November 17, in a session that saw 407 S&P constituents falling. Alphabet bucked the trend and climbed 3% on the heels of Berkshire Hathaway’s 13-F filing that showed a brand new ~$5 billion stake in the Google parent.

  • Asian tech and AI-related stocks tumbled on Tuesday, November 18, as the MSCI Asia Pacific Index followed Wall Street’s Monday selloff with a 2.3% decline of its own. Europe’s STOXX 600 index dropped 2% and the S&P made it four straight down days, falling 0.8%.

  • Nvidia’s strong earnings report and upbeat outlook (more on this below) were not enough to quell the market’s AI bubble fears on Thursday. After starting the day firmly in positive territory, the S&P reversed course to close 1.6% lower while the Nasdaq sank 2.2%. The Cboe Volatility Index (VIX), a gauge of stock market fear, exceeded 26 for the first time since the April tariff panic.

  • Asian markets followed suit on Friday with the MSCI Asia Pacific Index slumping 1.7%. US stocks rebounded, however, and the S&P 500 finished the day up 1.1%.

  • For the week, the S&P 500 lost 2% and the Nasdaq Composite dipped 2.7%. The Nasdaq is now down over 6% for the month and headed for its worst November since the Global Financial Crisis in 2008.

  • Don’t look now, but bonds are having their best year since COVID-stricken 2020, a year when the Federal Reserve cut rates to zero to fend off a broadening economic crisis. The Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index is up 6.81% for the year through November 21.

Economic Data

  • After wandering around in economic darkness for the duration of the six-week-long government shutdown, data is finally back! Even if it’s somewhat stale data. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that the US economy added a much stronger-than-expected 119,000 jobs in September, although the unemployment rate edged up from 4.3% to 4.4%—a four-year high but still quite low by historical measures. The report also revised downward job growth for July and August by 33,000.

  • The BLS confirmed that it will not publish an October employment report due to the government shutdown and instead will incorporate those payroll figures into the November report, set to be released after the Fed’s final meeting of the year on December 9-10. The same goes for the October consumer price index report, which will mark the first time on record that the BLS will skip its monthly inflation reading. The data might be back, but the FOMC still will not yet be working with a full deck by the time it makes its next interest rate decision.

  • In a bright spot for the housing market, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported that sales of previously owned homes increased 1.2% to 4.1 million in October, reaching the highest level since February. The median existing home price rose to $415,200 in October, marking a 2.1% increase from the previous year. In what WP views as a somewhat rose-tinted prediction, the NAR is forecasting a 14% increase in existing home sales in 2026, citing lower mortgage rates.[2]

  • Japan’s economy contracted for the first time in six quarters on weaker exports. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi unveiled a $135 billion spending package, the largest such since the pandemic. Her base might approve, but investors are wary of Japan’s nosebleed debt level and the prospect of facing higher interest rates amid reinflation.

  • Those who are out of work are remaining unemployed for longer in the “low-hire, low-fire” economy.



  • The US office vacancy rate stands at 14.1%, near a record high, according to real estate data firm CoStar. Of the 12 largest markets, five are experiencing vacancy rates topping 25-year highs. Office property sales totaled $45.4 billion in the first three quarters of this year, less than half of pre-COVID 2019’s $102.6 billion. Obsolete buildings and distressed properties are a drag on city center retailers and local governments that rely on property taxes. Boston, for instance, recently increased residential property taxes to compensate for waning commercial collections.[3]


      Central Bank Watch

      • Minutes from the FOMC’s October meeting portrayed a Fed divided on the path of interest rates moving forward. Inflation, currently hovering just under 3% (we think), has remained stubbornly above the Fed’s 2% target for five years running while labor market data is depicting nascent weakness.October’s decision to cut by a quarter of a point had two dissenters: Fed governor Stephen Miran, who wanted a half-point cut, and Kansas City Fed President Jeff Schmid, who advocated no cut.

      • Fed watchers have been parsing comments from Federal Reserve officials amid the economic data deficiency, which has led to large swings in interest rate expectations that have likely contributed to recent stock market volatility. CME FedWatch placed the odds of another rate cut at the FOMC’s December 9-10 meeting at 69% as of November 21, up from 44% the week prior.[4]

      Geopolitics

      • Washington and Moscow bilaterally concocted a 28-point plan to end the war in Ukraine. The “new” plan involves previously rejected concessions of territory, bars Ukraine from joining NATO, and forces elections within 100 days. Zelenskiy agreed to take a look while EU countries scrambled to insert themselves into the discussions.

      • President Trump announced plans for the US to sell F-35 fighter jets and advanced chips to Saudi Arabia despite security concerns about China, Riyadh’s largest trading partner, possibly accessing technology (the F-35 features advanced sensors and stealth technology). Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said that Saudi Arabia is committed to investing $1 trillion in the US, which likely includes the F-35s, which run $100 million per jet.[5]

      • The US also formally designated Saudi Arabia as a “major non-NATO ally,” which is apparently an official honorific that entails enhanced military collaboration.

      (A)simov (I)saac

      • Alphabet rolled out its Gemini 3 AI model, which CEO Sundar Pichai called the “best model in the world.”[6] He’s not the only cheerleader for the new digs—Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff posted to X, “Holy sh--. I’ve used ChatGPT every day for 3 years. Just spent 2 hours on Gemini 3. I’m not going back. The leap is insane…It feels like the world just changed, again.”[7] Gemini 3 Pro outperformed GPT 5.1 across general intelligence and coding-specific tasks, according to data from AI-benchmarking firm Artificial Analysis. Gemini is catching up where it counts, too. It now has over 650 million monthly active users, up from 450 million in July, and compared to 800 million for ChatGPT.[8]

      • In the latest example corroborating the circular investment theme, Microsoft ($10 billion) and Nvidia ($5 billion) announced a $15 billion investment in AI startup Anthropic, whose Claude is a rival to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. In turn, Anthropic is buying $30 billion of computing capacity on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform and will enlist Nvidia for assistance with model design.[9]

      • Peter Thiel’s hedge fund became the second deep-pocketed investor to exit its entire stake in NVDA in as many weeks, though at $100 million, the sale pales in comparison to SoftBank’s $5.8 billion liquidation. Are the bigwigs getting cold feet about the prospects of continued AI expansion? Or are they simply taking profits and reallocating?

      • Amazon sought to raise $12 billion in its first debt sale since 2022. The tech giants may be nearing free cash flow exhaustion when it comes to AI spending race and have recently turned to the bond market to help fund planned capex.

      Corporate Earnings & Stocks in the News

      • Nvidia reported adjusted quarterly earnings of $1.30 per share on record revenue of $57 billion, with both metrics beating consensus estimates. The chipmaker offered a revenue guidance range for the current quarter with a midpoint of $65 billion, which implies sales growth of 65% year over year, astonishing for a company its size. Notably, the sales growth figure excluded business in China due to regulatory uncertainty amid national security concerns. CEO Jensen Huang pointed to “off the charts” sales of the company’s cutting-edge Blackwell chips and emphasized that “demand keeps accelerating and compounding,” indicating exponential growth in the AI space. Shares rose 5% in after-hours trading following the earnings release on Wednesday, November 19, before making a U-turn to finish down 3% on Thursday.[10]

      • Walmart delivered “beat-and-raise” Q3 results. Adjusted earnings grew 5.8% from the year prior as same-store sales rose 4.5%. The world’s largest retailer also said it would be moving its stock listing from the NYSE to the Nasdaq to highlight its prominence in e-commerce. The move also means that WMT will be included in the Nasdaq-100 index, from which the stock could benefit from increased flows from passive index funds.[11] The US consumer may be placing a premium on value following years of inflation. The stock, however, is not a bargain at more than 40x forward earnings. It was the final earnings call for CEO Doug McMillon, who will be retiring after strong almost-12-year run at the helm. John Furner, CEO of Walmart US and a 30-year company veteran, will officially take the reins in February.

      • Target reported better-than-expected earnings and revenue, though same-store sales fell 2.7% from a year ago. The struggling retailer also reduced the top end of its range for fiscal year earnings to $7 to $8 per share from the previous $7 to $9 as it increases capital expenditures to remodel more stores and refocus on improving customer experience.

      • Home Depot reported disappointing Q3 results, sending the stock down 6%. Earnings, same-store sales, and transaction numbers all missed analyst expectations, and the company lowered its fiscal year adjusted EPS growth forecast to -5%, even lower than the previously anticipated 2% drop. CEO Ted Decker blamed the Q3 misses on a soft Atlantic hurricane season.[12]

      • With ~95% of the S&P 500 having reported Q3 earnings, 83% exceeded EPS estimates and 76% of companies beat revenue expectations. Year over year earnings growth for the index is tracking toward 13.4%, which will mark the fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. The forward 12-month P/E ratio is 21.5, above the five-year average of 20.0 and 10-year average of 18.7.[13] America, Inc. has been up to the task of justifying elevated price multiples.

      • Eli Lilly became the first Healthcare stock and just the second non-Tech sector stock, after Berkshire Hathaway, to surpass $1 trillion in market value. Lilly’s weight loss injection, Mounjaro, posted sales of $3.59 billion in Q3, up 184% from the year prior. A less invasive oral version of the drug is expected to hit the market next year and analysts see the weight loss drug market growing by 50% by the early 2030s.[14] LLY is up almost 50% over the last three months.

      • Meanwhile, Lilly competitor Novo Nordisk cut prices in the US for Wegovy and Ozempic for cash-pay patients in an attempt to recapture market share. Lilly has separated itself by wide margin as of late—below is a chart of the respective stock prices over the last year. The struggling Novo replaced its CEO earlier this year and reshuffled its board of directors on Friday,[15] just a few days prior to the pricing announcement.

      • Elsewhere in Healthcare, Abbot Labs struck a deal to buy Exact Sciences, owner of Cologuard, for $21 billion.

      • Meta Platforms won a landmark lawsuit when a federal judge ruled that the Facebook-owner’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp did not violate US antitrust law. Government lawyers argued Meta bought the two companies rather than compete with them, but the presiding judge ruled that the Federal Trade Commission failed to prove that the deals allowed Meta to illegally monopolize social networking.

      • Netflix, Comcast, and Paramount Skydance all submitted bids for pieces or all of Warner Bros. and its deep content catalog that spans from Casablanca to Harry Potter.

      • In a bit of good news for Apple, Counterpoint Market Intelligence estimated that the iPhone 17 series accounted for 25% of smartphone sales in China during the month of October. This would mark a 37% increase from a year earlier and the first time since 2022 that Apple has captured at least a 25% share of the Chinese market.[16]

      In Other News…

      • President Trump reversed course on the topic of the Epstein files and urged Republicans in Congress to vote to require the Justice Department to release all documents, claiming “we have nothing to hide.”[17]WP was under the impression that Trump could compel his Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to release the files without Congressional intervention.

      • Congress did intervene, however, and the House voted by an overwhelming 427-1 margin to force the Justice Department’s hand. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer made a motion to pass the measure by unanimous action. No senator objected, and the bill was forwarded to Trump’s desk.

      • President Trump signed the bill, authorizing the Justice Department to release within 30 days thousands of unclassified documents related to Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell. The trove is bound to include flight logs, internal memos, personal communications, FBI interview notes, immunity agreements, and other records that have never been made public in a comprehensive way. The DOJ can redact victims’ identities, child-abuse imagery, and anything tied to an active investigation, but it will have to explain any redactions to Congress.

      • Larry Summers, former Harvard President and US Treasury Secretary under President Bill Clinton, became the most high-profile casualty yet of the Epstein mess. He was relieved of his professorial duties at the Ivy after initially vowing to stay on while reducing his public profile and stepping down from his role as a board member at ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.

      The Week Ahead

      • US markets will be closed all day Thursday for Thanksgiving and will only open for a half day on Good Friday.

      • Economic data releases will include September retail sales and the producer price index from the Census Bureau and the BLS, respectively. The Fed will also release its final beige book of regional economic activity for the year.

      Economic and Index Definitions

      [1] Data obtained from YCharts unless otherwise noted

      [2] Mishkin, Shaina. “Home Sales Perked Up in October. Don’t Call It a Comeback—Yet.” Barron’s, 20 November 2025, https://www.barrons.com/articles/existing-home-sales-october-prices-d3f8905b?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=AWEtsqeUBGnBexROP9xh0-Wylysyg0eisdEiQ5TgHWeWigqeg0ht5lxjZQ_SoA-O_Ac%3D&gaa_ts=6931255a&gaa_sig=tSwUo45fLagp1EFW250WzQExGYKWooZJYj3tTmlyIVGANn7nl3EsPbMG1Vr4fVttFQmv6JzhSMHbCldH2FTOBQ%3D%3D.

      [3] Grant, Peter. “The Office Market’s Budding Recovery Is Leaving Most Cities Behind.” The Wall Street Journal, 18 November 2025, https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/commercial/the-office-markets-budding-recovery-is-leaving-most-cities-behind-ef648ff6?mod=djem10point.

      [4] CME FedWatch, https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/interest-rates/cme-fedwatch-tool.html.

      [5] “Ward et al. “Trump Says Saudi Leader Knew Nothing of Journalist Murder, Rejecting CIA Assessment.” The Wall Street Journal, 18 November 2025, https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/trump-and-saudi-crown-prince-begin-visit-packed-with-deals-cc8266cf?mod=djem_b_Feature_11192025%2070013%20AM.

      [6]https://x.com/sundarpichai/status/1990812770762215649?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1990812770762215649%7Ctwgr%5E1c24d08753ff4f74cfefeaa18c16f9433ed74b91%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.barrons.com%2Farticles%2Falphabet-stock-price-google-ceo-ai-bubble-warning-gemini-model-43bc8961

      [7]https://x.com/Benioff/status/1992726929204760661

      [8] Clark, Adam. “How Google’s Gemini 3 Made Alphabet a Record-Breaking Stock.” Barron’s, 20 November 2025, https://www.barrons.com/articles/alphabet-google-stock-price-gemini-3-chatgpt-e2d998e2?lid=ncbzu4vndg1l&mod=BRNS_ENG_NAS_EML_BULLETINTST_AUTO_NAH.

      [9] Tatananni and Kim. “Antropic to Buy $30 Billion of Azure Compute Capacity in Microsoft and Nvidia Partnership.” Barron’s, 18 November 2025, https://www.barrons.com/articles/nvidia-microsoft-anthropic-ai-2472a858?mod=djem_b_Feature_11192025%2070013%20AM.

      0] Kim, Tae. “Nvidia Stock Surges on Earnings Beat, Boosting Broader Market Too.” Barron’s, 19 November 2025, https://www.barrons.com/livecoverage/nvidia-earnings-stock-price-news?mod=djem_b_reviewandpreview.

      [11] Escobar, Sabrina. “Walmart Raises Forecasts. Consumers Are Still Spending.” Barron’s, 20 November 2025, https://www.barrons.com/articles/walmart-earnings-stock-price-6ed3528c?lid=r6ugfyqxbppj&mod=BRNS_ENG_NAS_EML_BULLETINTST_AUTO_NAH.

      [12] Escobar and Glover. “Home Depot Blames Weather for Earnings Miss. The Stock Market Isn’t Buying It.” Barron’s, 18 November 2025, https://www.barrons.com/articles/home-depot-earnings-stock-price-30c254c1?mod=djem_b_reviewandpreview.

      [13] Butters, John. “Earnings Insight.” FactSet, 21 November 2025.

      [14] Constantino and Pramuk. “Eli Lilly hits $1 trillion market value, a first in health care, as Novo Nordisk tumbles.” CNBC, 21 November 2025, https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/21/eli-lilly-hits-1-trillion-market-value-first-for-health-care-company.html.

      [15] Chopping, Dominic. “Novo Nordisk Shareholders Approve New Chair, Board Members.” The Wall Street Journal, 14 November 2025, https://www.wsj.com/health/pharma/novo-nordisk-says-mikael-dolsten-wont-seek-election-to-board-at-fridays-meeting-ed1043d9?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=AWEtsqfO5PwV5-g4HyVpUXp5ilwoGeFco_8eAKzYqT8QmHOF02EocP8uU05IZg5KNxk%3D&gaa_ts=69254d00&gaa_sig=Jayq6rxF6Wx3A-HKdH2yrmbpzo7FSRm7-q4T0eDdMcHZcniLSJAjx8RRajPDx5x6X_NQA1Zq4kz3gwYxyVp8CA%3D%3D.

      [16] “Apple takes 25% share of China smartphone market in October on iPhone 17 demand.” Reuters, 18 November 2025, https://www.reuters.com/world/china/apple-takes-25-share-china-smartphone-market-october-iphone-17-demand-2025-11-18/.

      [17]https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115562626931599548