Market Recap & Snapshot[1]
Famine turned into feast as stocks roared back during the holiday-shortened Thanksgiving week following the prior week’s sell-off and what was shaping up to be a dismal November.
The Nasdaq-100 index gained upwards of 2% on Monday, November 24, in its best session since May. A series of Fed officials were vocal in supporting a rate cut at the FOMC’s December 9-10 meeting.
Google-parent Alphabet led a Tech stock comeback on the heels of the release of its Gemini 3 model and news of a chip deal with Instagram owner Meta Platforms.
The S&P 500 rose 0.5% on Black Friday and 3.7% for the week as a whole to tally the best Thanksgiving week since 2008. The month-ending rally saw the large-cap index erase all losses to rise 0.1% for November. Prior to the five-day rally that began on November 21, the S&P had been heading toward its worst November since the Great Recession. The Nasdaq Composite finished the month down 1.5% after being off as much as 7%.
Economic Data
Retail sales rose by a tepid 0.2% in September following a summer of robust growth, falling short of economists’ forecasts of a 0.4% increase. Spending declined in electronics, appliances, and sporting goods, categories that have been hard-hit by the Trump administration’s tariffs. While the consumer data may be stale due to the government shutdown, it corroborates much of what we heard from the big retailers during their earnings calls last week: Consumers have become more selective in their spending and are prioritizing value as concerns over inflation and affordability mount, particularly among lower- and middle-income households.[2]
Elsewhere on the consumer front, TransUnion reported that more than half of Americans surveyed anticipated spending at least as much as last year during the Holidays, which could fillip Q4 GDP growth that will likely take hit as a result of the 43-day government shutdown.
The producer price index (PPI) for total final demand rose 0.3% in September, up from August’s 0.1% decline. Core PPI, which is preferred by Fed officials as it strips out volatile food and energy prices, advanced 0.1% on the month and 2.9% year over year. Economists often use PPI to back in to the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, on which the Fed focuses when making its interest rate decisions. Core PCE is still likely running hot at 2.8%, well above the Fed’s 2% target. The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) has announced that they will be releasing the delayed PCE inflation, spending, and expenditures numbers for September on Dec. 5, ahead of the next Fed meeting.[3]
The Federal Reserve’s Beige Book of regional economic activity pointed to softening consumer spending and a labor market that is losing momentum. As evidence of what’s referred to as the “K-shaped” economy, spending weakened in most retail and discretionary categories while high-end retail remained resilient. While large layoffs were absent, businesses said they were relying on attrition and have only been hiring to replace departing workers. The release marked one of the last meaningful reference points for Fed policymakers prior to the December 9-10 FOMC meeting.[4]
The Department of Labor reported 216,000 initial jobless claims for the week, fewer than the 230,000 consensus estimate.
The S&P Cotality Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index posted a 1.3% annual gain for September, down from a 1.4% rise in the previous month. All 20 metro areas recorded month-over-month declines before seasonal adjustment in September, underscoring broad-based weakening as elevated mortgage rates weighed on affordability and demand.[5]
Some food for thought for those thinking about listing their abode in the current real estate environment: Over 20% of active listings in October and 57% of the homes sold so far in 2025 have had at least one price cut, per Realtor.com. Why is finding the right starting list price important? Listings that sell after a price reduction typically spend about five times longer on the market than homes that were priced accurately at the outset, according to data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR).[6]
Central Bank Watch
Taken in total, the (mostly stale) softish economic data reported during the week increased the market’s perceived odds of a rate cut to 87% at the FOMC’s next meeting in December.
Inflation in Germany, at 2.6%, and Spain is running hot while price growth remains subdued in France and Italy. The divergence among the Old World’s largest four economies is complicating the interest rate picture for the ECB, which is believed to have reached the end of its rate-cutting cycl
(A)simov (I)saac
Reports that Meta Platforms was in talks to buy billions of dollars of Google’s AI chips sent Nvidia’s shares lower on Tuesday, November 25. This comes on the heels of rave reviews for Alphabet’s new Gemini 3 chatbot, which was trained primarily using Google’s own Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) as opposed to Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs). While TPUs aren’t as flexible as Nvidia’s chips, they are cheaper to develop and use less power when running at full capacity. Nvidia still dominates the AI chip space with 90% market share, but the stock dropped 2.6% on the news anyway. Alphabet, meanwhile, is up almost 70% for the year, outpacing the Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF’s 23% return by over 3x.
Broadcom, who partners with Google to develop its TPUs, also benefited from the Meta news, with its stock jumping 11% on Tuesday, November 25.
Apple closed at a record high on that same day. The iPhone maker has yet to debut anything splashy at all as it pertains to AI. Instead, it has gone about its business, buying back $91 billion of its own stock over the latest fiscal year while limiting capex to just $12.7 billion. Meanwhile, its Big Tech cohorts are spending 5-10x as much to keep pace in the AI arms race.[7] It appears that Cook & Co. are comfortable watching from the sidelines as the spending spree plays out. Time will tell if this seemingly complacent strategy will leave Apple in the dust or turn out to be a shrewd move (or lack thereof).
President Trump signed an executive order for the Genesis Mission. The objective of the program is to leverage government and university scientific datasets to build AI models to solve various problems in medicine, energy, and national security, as well as to accelerate scientific and engineering discovery. The biggest expense will be obtaining the computing power necessary to create and run these new scientific AI models, and Congress will likely need to allocate funding for the program at some point.[8]WP says: Go science!
On the energy front, Americans are paying more than ever for electricity in a trend that doesn’t show any sign of reversing in the near-term as power-hungry data centers are due to come online over the next several years. WP would not be surprised if elections hinge on energy price control in the coming cycles.
Geopolitics
As the war in Ukraine is set to enter its fourth winter, WP is not holding out much hope that the most recent salvo of US-led peace talks will hold any water. “Putin wants legal recognition of what he has stolen—to break the principles of territorial integrity and sovereignty—and this is the main problem,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a speech distributed by his office. For his part, Putin opined that, “It would be impolite of me to talk about any final versions [of a peace agreement] now. There are none.” Russia wants Ukraine to cede territory—some which has yet to be captured, cap its future military strength, and to bar its admittance to NATO in exchange for peace.
Things are heating up in the Caribbean as questions arose over what may be considered extrajudicial military strikes on civilian boats that purportedly intended to carry drugs to the US. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth allegedly instructed the US military to kill everyone aboard one of the boats that were attacked, and that a second strike was ordered to kill survivors. Some believe that the order(s) could amount to a war crime.
Fiscal Policy
The US government negotiated lower prices for 15 top-selling medicines, including Ozempic, within the federal Medicare program. The new prices, which will take effect in 2027, shave 38% to 85% off the list prices for drugs for diseases such as asthma, cancer, and diabetes, and are estimated to save Medicare billions. For patients, the lower prices could reduce spending on copays or other out-of-pocket charges imposed by their particular plan (other patients might not see direct savings, however, because of fixed monthly copays). The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimates that patients will save roughly $685 million in out-of-pocket costs in 2027.[9]
Corporate Earnings & Stocks in the News
The hits keep coming for Novo Nordisk shareholders as news dropped that the pill version of its vaulted obesity drug Ozempic failed to slow the progression of Alzheimer's, dashing Novo’s hopes of opening yet another market for the GLP-1 receptor agonist. The stock fell 5.6% on Monday, November 24, and is down 67% from its summer 2024 all-time high.
In Other News…
Two National Guard soldiers were shot near the White House in what appeared to be a targeted attack by an Afghan national. President Trump took to Truth Social to demand “reverse migration” proposed to halt admissions from “third world” countries.
A massive fire swept through a Hong Kong high-rise housing complex. Highly flammable bamboo scaffolding that surrounded the buildings, which were under renovation, were believed to accelerate the blaze. The death toll last stood at 128 with an unknown number still unaccounted for.
The FAA expected travel between Tuesday and Sunday of Thanksgiving week to be the busiest in 15 years. This would be good news for the airlines, who are bracing for a government shutdown-induced impairment to Q4 earnings.
Two Swiss lawmakers filed a criminal complaint with the country’s top prosecutors over gifts to President Donald Trump just before he agreed to cut tariffs on Switzerland. Swiss executives presented Trump with a Rolex table clock and an engraved gold bar, actions that could be considered bribing a foreign official (in this case, the most powerful foreign official on the planet).
Malaysia joined Australia in banning social media for children under 16 in an effort to protect minors from online harm.
The Week Ahead
Initial reads on Black Friday retail spending will roll in, providing more-current hard data on the health of the American consumer. Adobe predicts Americans will spend $43.7 billion online in the five days from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday, up 6.3% from 2024.
The BEA will release the shutdown-delayed PCE price index for September on Friday, December 5.
ADP will provide its National Employment Report for November on Wednesday, offering Fed officials a gauge of private sector employment.
Earnings highlights will include Salesforce and American Eagle Outfitters.
Economic and Index Definitions: https://www.waldronpartners.com/economic-and-index-definitions
[1] Data obtained from YCharts unless otherwise noted
[2] Escobar, Sabrina.” Retail Sales Finally Land. There Are These Red Flags for the U.S. Economy.” Barron’s, 25 November 2025, https://www.barrons.com/articles/retail-sales-september-shutdown-economy-e320d157?mod=djem_b_reviewandpreview.
[3] Leonhardt, Megan. “September Producer Price Index Shows 0.3% Gain. What It Means.” Barron’s, 25 November 2025, https://www.barrons.com/articles/fed-ppi-inflation-rates-44435c7a?mod=djem_b_reviewandpreview.
[4] Goodkind, Nicole. “Fed’s Beige Book Shows Cooling Labor Market, Softer Spending Ahead of December Rate Decision.” Barron’s, 26 November 2025, https://www.barrons.com/articles/fed-beige-book-interest-rates-faad5541?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=AWEtsqdfcnqtCzcf-iDZRfZE8JpP8n4Y5jvKBGCgqiLX7QVcrlyKTDhaXw51v-FKUPE%3D&gaa_ts=693c5df4&gaa_sig=4A3wCW1LeBdX0mT071sLJylpxNLifBaIXfAkEoRCKVR_eD_b_5WA2mAWdvK6GDFDxR5wxyBle6SnFuBPWYNPAw%3D%3D.
[5] “S&P Cotality Case-Shiller Index Reports Annual Gain in September 2025.” S&P Dow Jones Indices, 25 November 2025, https://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/index-announcements/article/sp-cotality-case-shiller-index-reports-annual-gain-in-september-2025/.
[6] Dagher, Veronica. “When Home Sellers Set Prices Too High, They’re Paying for It.” The Wall Street Journal, 25 November 2025, https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/when-home-sellers-set-prices-too-high-theyre-paying-for-it-86fe1866?mod=djem10point.
[7] Bary, Andrew. “Apple Plows Money Into Buybacks. Its Rivals Are Spending on Data Centers.” Barron’s, 31 October 2025, https://www.barrons.com/articles/apple-stock-buybacks-ai-capex-925918a2?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=AWEtsqepuYUPgkjWhJIwnrXa8PNjqTosZLkmBtGSMNVb3_h3vZW-gRoWNA_N2NJ4TUE%3D&gaa_ts=693c5747&gaa_sig=etQLvdyje61dT35EWJyqbtQd36yH7b3JLgP-ZC2P3Qe5lc9YRpmiwkKCCgcNQggMfKJS80cmkw6uJMuLn9GDNg%3D%3D.
[8] Levine, Adam. “Trump Signs AI Executive Order. What to Know About ‘Genesis Mission.’” Barron’s, 24 November 2025, https://www.barrons.com/articles/trump-signs-ai-executive-order-genesis-mission-6f89b794?lid=ryd5ygpwf1w1&mod=BRNS_ENG_NAS_EML_BULLETINTST_AUTO_NAH.
[9] Loftus, Peter. “U.S. Negotiates Lower Prices for Ozempic and 14 Other Drugs.” The Wall Street Journal, 25 November 2025, https://www.wsj.com/health/pharma/u-s-negotiates-lower-prices-for-ozempic-and-14-other-drugs-c410e72c?mod=djem10point.