Trillion dollar club rising despite challenging week
The past week clearly didn’t go as expected. Fortunately, there was no major crash, but the indices couldn’t hold their ground either. Despite the efforts of market participants (especially on Friday!), all three major U.S. indices ended the week with losses. The main factor behind the decline was, first and foremost, concerns about inflated valuations of leading tech stocks. And, to be honest, the losses weren’t so small. All indices lost around 2%. The Dow Jones dropped by 1.91%, the S&P 500 almost the same, 1.95%. The NASDAQ Composite, which tracks high-tech stocks, had a rough week as well: its total losses for the week approached 3% (-2.74%). NASDAQ has now fallen for the third consecutive week, marking the longest streak of weekly losses since March, and the index has currently dropped by 7% compared with its October peak.
Similar losses were recorded in the ITS family of indices. The ITS World Index (ITSW) dropped by 2.41%, while the ITS Shariah Index (ITSS) lost slightly more, 2.54%.
The biggest losers of the week, as mentioned earlier, were tech stocks. The average loss in this sector was 4.7%, despite the fact that the stocks should have received support from industry leader Nvidia (NVDA), which published a great quarterly report on Wednesday evening. The initial market reaction to this report was indeed very positive. However, the bubble of optimism quickly deflated, and Nvidia’s stock, along with many other tech companies’ stocks, started to fall, losing percentage point after percentage point. Nvidia dropped by 5.9% over the week, despite news on Friday that the Trump administration was considering allowing the sale of H200 AI chips to China. So, even presidential support couldn’t help in this case.
However, there’s some good news for healthcare stocks, which remain in favor with investors. In the top 10 best-performing companies in the S&P 500 index for the past week, there were again four representatives from the healthcare sector. Last week, there were six, and the week before that, five. As they say, stability is a sign of mastery. In other words, there’s a clear shift in priorities among investors. The leader in the healthcare sector, Eli Lilly & Co (LLY), became the eighth member of the prestigious Trillion Dollar Club by surpassing the $1 trillion mark.
At the moment, there are signs of concern among investors. Stock trading has been quite volatile lately. Throughout the past week, the volatility index (also known as the fear index) VIX consistently stayed above the 20-point mark, which is a rather high and clearly worrying level. This reflects increased investor anxiety over disproportionately high valuations in the AI sector within the tech industry and overly ambitious AI spending plans of leading companies. Another major point of concern is the interest rate issue, with the decision to be made at the Federal Reserve’s final meeting of the year in December.
Market expectations for November 24, 2025
The upcoming week will be short but extremely important for the further development of events. This week, significant trading and major news will be concentrated in the first three days, as Thursday is Thanksgiving Day in the U.S., and all markets will be closed. On Friday, known as Black Friday, trading will traditionally be reduced, because instead of trading, everyone will be focused on shopping. So, investors will not be as concerned with stocks.
Therefore, all attention will be on the first days of the week. Macroeconomic data will take center stage, as it will finally start to come from official government bodies after a 1.5-month hiatus caused by the shutdown. There will be plenty of data on the housing market, retail sales, and the producer price index (PPI). However, the most important and interesting data will be the first preliminary GDP estimate for the U.S. for the third quarter, which will be released on Wednesday before the markets open. This could significantly energize market participants.
For now, optimism in the market is mainly being supported by statements from influential Federal Reserve member John Williams, who noted on Friday that interest rates could be lowered in the near future. This greatly encouraged market participants. The likelihood of a rate cut at the December FOMC meeting in the U.S. immediately rose from 39% to 57% (according to the relevant futures quotes traded on CME). This optimism was reflected on Monday morning in the futures quotes for major U.S. indices, which added from 0.2% for the Dow Jones to more than 0.6% for the NASDAQ 100.
The rest of the stock market looks good at the start of the week as well. While European markets show mixed dynamics – a slight decline in Spain and over +1% in Germany – all indices in Asia are confidently rising. The best-performing Asian index is Hong Kong’s Hang Seng, which has gained 1.76% from Friday’s close.
Still, given the gloomy outlook for global stock markets this month, attention this week will primarily shift to holiday shopping trends and retail sales in the U.S. Many analysts hope that there will be signs of strengthening consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of the country’s economic activity. If sales on Black Friday and the following Cyber Monday meet expectations, investors can hope for the much-anticipated Santa Claus rally in the future.