Shesa's Weekend Stock Market Update - 11|30|25

Welcome to the weekend updates

Hope all the readers have/had a great thanksgiving!

This week was shortened by Thanksgiving holidays. US stocks rallied near records. S&P 500 rose 2.2% to 6,849. Dow gained 2.7%; Nasdaq up 2.3% but down about 2% for November. Please note that last time Nasdaq lost -1.22% in November 2016. Hence, it was a reversal this year for Nasdaq. The S&P/Dow notched seventh straight monthly gain; Nasdaq first loss since March 2025. The focus was back to some of the AI stocks, but Nvidia's losing streak continues. The holiday sales are looking much better than expected, hence that's a very positive sign of the stock market 4.1% vs. 3.8% expected. 

Here is the projected figure of Holiday U.S Sales

  • Appox Shoppers: Record 186.9 million (Stores + Online).  
  • Thanksgiving Day: $6.4B online (up 4.9–5.3% YoY, actual).  
  • Black Friday: $11.7B–$11.8B online (up 8.3–9.1% YoY, actual); overall 4.1% growth (in-store + Online).  
  • Cyber Monday: Projected $14.2B (up 6.3% YoY).  

Economic News last week
  • The producer price index (PPI) increased 0.3% for September, in line with estimate. However, excluding food and energy, the index rose just 0.1% vs. 0.2% estimated.
  • Retail sales increased 0.2% in September vs. 0.3% forecast. However, sales excluding autos rose 0.3%, in line with the estimate.
  • ADP said Private companies lost an average of 13,500 jobs a week over the past four weeks, ADP said as part of a running update it has been providing. That’s an acceleration from the 2,500 jobs a week lost in the last update a week ago.
  • The Consumer Confidence came down to 88.7 vs. 93.2 expected, a drop of 6.8 points from the prior month for its lowest reading since April 2025.
Fed Meeting 
Next FED meeting is on December 10 and currently 86% of Wall Street analysts are expecting a December rate cut. 

Economic News this week
MONDAY, DEC. 1: ISM Manufacturing, FED chair J Powell speaks
WEDNESDAY, DEC. 1: ADP employment
FRIDAY, DEC. 5: PCE index (delayed report)

Other News
Treasury Secretary said last Tuesday he expects President Donald Trump to make a decision on the new Federal Reserve chair by the holiday season.86% chances of Rate Cut. 

Stocks to watch
GOOG, NVDA, AVGO, TSLA, HOOD, META, AMZN, MSFT, APLD, AMD, TQQQ, SOXL, TEM, AAPL, IONQ, CRWD - earnings on 12/2, SNOW - earnings on 12/3.

What to expect ?
Now that thanksgiving is over, we may see the return of institutional investors and hence uptick in trading volumes. It's difficult to predict but I feel market may continue its upward momentum but some pullbacks can't be ruled out. For December, I will try to elaborate in my next blog. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Post

Shesa's NOVEMBER 2025 Investment Blog

Welcome to Shesa’s Blog U.S. Stock Market Update   I have a shorter version of my blog this month. The month of October started in a volatile manner but it picked up and Dow was up 2.6%, S&P 500 was up 2.3% and Nasdaq roared up 4.7%. We are seeing the similar trend in the month of November. Historically, November happens to be the best month for the stock market since 1950. As of date, Nasdaq is up 21.5% and S&P 500 is up 16.4% for the year. Meanwhile, the stock market had a volatile week on the fear of AI/tech valuation, longest government shutdown in U.S history . It’s expected to end tomorrow, let’s see if that happens. The ADP payroll was little better but layoffs in October (153,074) the highest in last 23 years mostly attributed to cost cutting due to AI impact and DOGE impact. The consumer sentiment was second lowest ever due to government shutdown and dull labor market situation. Despite strong Q3 earnings (82% beats, ~11% growth) the stock market has not be...
Read more

Shesa's October 2025 Investment Blog

By Shesa Nayak Welcome to Shesa’s Investment Blog I will have a shorter version of my blog this month.  U.S. Stock Market Update   September happens to be the worst month of the year but we saw an exceptional September with S&P 500 up 3.5% , Nasdaq up 5.6% and Dow rose 1.9% . The market further gained momentum in October but last week the U.S. stock market saw significant volatility. The S&P 500 fell -2.4% , the Nasdaq dropped - 2.5% , and the Dow declined -2.7% , marking their largest single-day percentage drops since April 10 . Despite hitting record highs earlier in the week, driven by AI optimism and a tech rally, markets took a U turn on last Friday after President Trump threatened 100% tariffs on Chinese imports starting November 1 or sooner in response to China’s response on rare earth exports on port fees on U.S. vessels sparking trade war fears. The S&P 500 closed at 6,553 points, down 2.71% on October 10, while the Nasdaq lost 3...
Read more

Shesa's Weekend Stock Market Updates - 11|16|25

Welcome to the weekend updates What a volatile week for the technology stocks! So far, we have seen a turbulent November . We saw  prolonged government shutdown (longest in history), delayed economic data, hurt consumer sentiment; AI/tech skepticism about AI stocks, rotation to healthcare/energy, lukewarm economic growth etc. Dow hit records mid-week on shutdown as investors took profit from AI stocks and rotated to other sectors. But  after the week's wild swings, Nasdaq ended down about 0.5% for the period. However, both the S&P 500 and the Dow held hair gain, up 0.1% and 0.3%, respectively.  So, why did  technology stocks got hammered? A Short seller showed  concern about the depreciation of the life of chips/GPU and said  that  AI stocks like Nvidia (NVDA) and Palantir (PLTR) are in a bubble with overinflated valuations, prompting his $1.1 billion short bets revealed in early November 2025 filings. This triggered a tech sell-off and backlash f...
Read more