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Nasdaq, S&P 500, Dow rise for 5th day of gains to cap a rocky month

U.S. stocks posted small gains on Friday after a holiday-shortened week and a volatile month.

The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) led the market higher on Black Friday, rising about 0.5% in mid-morning trade. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) and the generalist S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose about 4%.

Earlier in the day, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange restored trading operations after a prolonged outage disrupted live trading in futures and options in several markets around the world, including U.S. Treasuries and U.S. crude oil. The outage lasted until 8:30 a.m. ET, when CME said the outage had been resolved.

Stocks rose sharply this week after traders bet the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates less than two weeks from its December meeting. New confidence in AI trades provided a tailwind for tech names heading into Thursday’s close for the Thanksgiving holiday.

However, Wall Street indexes were looking down on the losing month. A sharp cooldown in megacap tech names led to a fall for November as investors reassessed how quickly AI-powered businesses can translate hype into sustainable profits.

As of midday trading Friday, the S&P 500 was little changed after a six-month winning streak for November. The Nasdaq was on track to snap a seven-month run of gains with losses of about 2%. The Dow was almost unchanged in November.

As November wraps up, analysts are rolling out their stock-market predictions for the coming year. Deutsche Bank is targeting an S&P 500 of 8,000 by the end of 2026, at the high end of the forecast. HSBC and JPMorgan expect the benchmark index to hover around the 7,500 mark.

Markets will close early on Friday, at 1 p.m. ET, with no major earnings or economic data releases on the docket.

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Amazon, the e-commerce stock soars as shoppers look for Black Friday deals

E-commerce retail stocks led the sector on Black Friday as the biggest holiday shopping days of the year got underway.

Amazon ( AMZN ) and Target ( TGT ) rose 1.3%, and Walmart ( WMT ) added 1%. Online pet retailer Chewy ( CHWY ) also rose 1.4%

Department stores such as Macy’s ( M ), which reports earnings next week, and Kohl’s ( KSS ) also saw gains.

Among apparel brands, Abercrombie & Fitch ( ANF ) and Victoria’s Secret ( VSCO ) both popped more than 3%. However, other brands such as Gap ( GAP ) and Urban Outfitters ( URBN ) were closing in on the early market.

Vivek Pandya, chief analyst at Adobe, told Yahoo Finance that he expects Black Friday to kick off a strong holiday shopping season, with consumers expected to spend $253 billion during the period.

According to Adobe, consumers have already spent $6 billion on Thanksgiving.

“We have consumers leaning into the online space to get a sense of where their best discounts might be,” Pandya said. And given the consumer and how they’re organizing and spending events, we really expect a lot of momentum for Black Friday today.”
The power demand of AI data centers is driving up electricity prices and crushing aluminum smelters

AI data centers require aluminum for server racks, cooling units, and other critical pieces of equipment. But the power demand of data centers is driving up electricity costs and crushing the aluminum industry.

Jake Conley of Yahoo Finance reports:

Read more here.
Alphabet outperforms ‘Mag 7’ and overall tech sector for November

Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) has been a ‘Mag 7’ outlier this month as the tech giant’s stock has risen a whopping 13%.

For the month of November, tech (XLK) underperformed, but Alphabet beat each of the “Magnificent 7” stocks.

Alphabet’s Google Gemini AI product and its artificial intelligence chips, called TPUs, have raised hopes that the big tech player is a growing competitor to ChatGPT maker OpenAI, and chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA).

The AI chip heavyweight is on track to close the month with losses of around 12%, while Meta (META) and Tesla (TSLA) are also on pace to close with monthly losses.
Gold rose above $4,200 on expectations of a Fed rate cut

Gold (GC=F) futures settled near $4,200 an ounce on Friday, on pace to pare its fourth straight month of gains linked to ‘run-it-hot’ government policies going into 2026 on rising expectations of a December rate cut.

Dovish comments from Federal Reserve officials raised the possibility that policymakers will decide to cut interest rates by at least 25 basis points next month. Gold does not generate income, its relative attractiveness increases when interest rates fall.

A soft US dollar (DX-Y. NYB) and expectations of continued fiscal spending could support bullion prices.

“We have a huge deficit.. we also have a huge amount of government spending and on top of that, we have a huge amount of central bank buying,” Marketgauge.com chief strategist Michelle Schneider told Yahoo Finance on Friday morning.
US equity funds book first weekly outflow in 6 weeks

Reuters reports:

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Wall Street banks see oil prices falling

Wall Street’s big banks expect oil prices to fall in 2026 as a long-anticipated supply glut is fully realized. Jake Conley of Yahoo Finance reports:

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Stock reactions to Q3 earnings have been more severe than usual

Earnings for S&P 500 companies were largely solid in the third quarter. And by almost all reports, a 13.4% earnings growth rate is likely so far.

Although most (83%) earnings surprises have turned upside down, investors have become less excited about earnings beats and more chastened about earnings disappointments, as indicated by reactions to individual stock names.

According to FactSet’s John Butters, as of Nov. 21, S&P 500 companies that reported third-quarter earnings beats saw their stock prices rise an average of 0.4% in the four-day period surrounding the earnings release. This is below the five-year average growth of 0.9 percent.

For companies that miss earnings estimates, the response has been disproportionately negative.

Companies that reported lower-than-expected earnings saw their stocks fall by an average of 5% over the same period (two days after the earnings release). This is below the five-year average of 2.6 percent.

Concerns about the artificial intelligence bubble, slowing consumer spending, and Federal Reserve rate cuts were in flux throughout the season. And sky-high expectations created a high bar for some individual names, such as Nvidia (NVDA).

Read live coverage of corporate earnings.
Seasonal hiring provides little relief for labor market problems

Yahoo Finance’s Emma Ockerman reports:

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Stocks open with muted gains to close the holiday week

U.S. stocks opened with slight gains to close the holiday-short week and month of November.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite ( ^IXIC ) led stocks higher on Black Friday, rising about 0.4% in the first minute of trading. The broader S&P 500 (^GSPC) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) both rose 0.2%.

Stocks rebounded strongly this week after traders bet the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates at its meeting in less than two weeks in December and renew their faith in AI trading.

Markets opened shortly after the CME Group resumed operations after disrupting live trading in futures and options in several markets around the world, including US Treasuries and US crude oil.

The stock market will close at 1 PM ET
CME Group has resumed trading after markets plunged into darkness

CME Group said all its markets were back up and trading after a widespread outage that lasted several hours due to data center cooling problems.

Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM=F), S&P 500 (ES=F), and Nasdaq 100 (NQ=F) were flat when trading resumed. Dow and S&P 500 futures rose 0.1%, while Nasdaq futures gained 0.3%.

WTI crude oil futures (CL=F) rose 0.3%; Brent futures (BZ=F) rose 0.1%.

CME reopened its forex platform EBS at 7 a.m. ET, but trading for the rest of its markets, including U.S. Treasurys and crude futures, was affected until about 8:30 a.m. ET. CME attributed the outage to a cooling system malfunction at a data center near Chicago.
Wall Street’s 2026 forecasts are rolling in — and some see the S&P 500 hitting 8,000

Associate Channel of Yahoo Finance writes:

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good morning Here’s what’s happening today.
CME partially restores operations by restarting the FX platform

The CME (CME) has gradually resumed operations since Friday after stopping trading of futures and options for a few hours due to technical problems.

Forex platform EBS opened for trading at around 7 a.m. ET, according to a notice on the CME website. There was no indication when other markets halted by the outage could expect to resume.

“BrokerTec US Actives and BrokerTec EU are now open. Due to cooling issues in the CyrusOne data centers, our other markets are currently suspended,” the notice said.

Markets in the US and around the world were hit by the CME futures close, with US Treasuries and WTI crude futures taking a hit as bond and commodity platforms went dark.

According to CME, cooling issues at the CyrusOne data centers were at the root of the shutdown.
Premarket Trending Tickers: Oracle, Alphabet and Strategy

oracle (ORCL) The stock fell more than 1% before the bell on Friday. Morgan Stanley flagged credit market concerns for tech stocks on Thursday, and things will only get worse in 2026 unless Oracle can reassure investors about its AI spending spree.

alphabet (GOOG) The stock rose 1% in premarket trading on Friday. AI efforts and challenges to Nvidia’s ( NVDA ) leadership have been the focus of the tech giant in recent days, thanks to its new AI chips and Gemini 3 chatbot.

strategy (MSTR) The stock rose 2% before the bell. Strategy, which is the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, has seen its stock fall 5% over the past five days due to bitcoin’s decline. Bitcoin has now moved back above $90,000.
Rate-cut hopes blossomed towards a fourth straight monthly win for the Gold Coast

Bloomberg reports:

Gold (GC=F) is higher, on track for a fourth monthly gain, on high expectations for another interest rate cut in the US.

Futures and options trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange was halted for several hours due to a data center glitch, affecting liquidity in precious metals markets and leading to cold sessions with wider-than-usual bid-ask spreads.

Bullion was near $4,160 an ounce on Friday, up more than 2% for the week. A series of comments from Federal Reserve officials and the release of delayed economic data have bolstered the case for lower borrowing costs, which typically benefit gold because it doesn’t pay interest. Swap traders are pricing in a more than -80% chance of a quarter-point cut in December.

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Commodity trading halted as data center issue halts CME futures

Bloomberg reports:

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Oil saw its biggest one-month drop in two years

Bloomberg reports:

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