Black Friday Is More Important for Stock Markets Than Ever. This Is Why and 4 Other Things to Know Today.

Investors still digesting their turkey dinners have one more reason to be thankful: a great week for the stock market amid a brutal month.

But those considering adding stocks to their shopping cart on Black Friday may want to pause. The holiday itself could help decide the market’s next move.

Black Friday is always watched by investors, because the shopping event is one of the year’s best insights into consumer behavior that does not come from a government survey.

As a source of alternative data, Black Friday has perhaps never been this important. The 42-day government shutdown wreaked havoc on scheduled releases of official economic data—figures crucial for the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate decisions and catalysts for investor behavior.

While the latest insight into retail sales was released this week, the figures were from September and outdated because of the shutdown. With sparse data on tap before the Fed’s next rate decision in December, the central bank is likely to scrutinize Black Friday data more than ever. Investors should, too.

Black Friday has historically focused on discretionary goods (think TVs) but a slowing economy could lead shoppers to go for basics instead. If consumer spending is concentrated on groceries, it would be a bad sign for the economy but lend weight to the chance the Fed cuts borrowing costs in December.

Surveys also suggest discretionary spending may fall in step with income brackets. This would add support to the idea that the U.S. is in a K-shaped recovery —with the highest-income earners bouncing back much faster than others—which has implications for overall economic resilience.

All this means blowout sales on Black Friday may be more than meet the eye, which gives food for thought as market chatter turns to the prospect of a so-called Santa Rally into the end of the year.

—Jack Denton

***What’s Ahead for Markets in 2026? From “Liberation Day” tariffs to torrid rallies in AI stocks and gold, this year has been full of surprises. Join us on Dec. 11 at noon for discussions with investment strategists and money managers about the outlook for the economy and markets in 2026—and how to position your portfolio for success. Sign up here.

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Stock Futures Trading Halted by Data Center Outage

A technical issue at exchange operator CME Group disrupted early trading in closely watched U.S. index futures on Black Friday. Investors were otherwise preparing for normal trading after the Thanksgiving holiday, albeit in abridged market hours.

• “Due to a cooling issue at CyrusOne data centers, our markets are currently halted,” CME said in a statement, adding that they were working to resolve the issue. Reports suggested the halt began around 9:45 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday.
• CME hosts trading in futures contracts that track the major indexes, including the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, and Nasdaq-100. These futures are crucial for investors in the U.S. and around the world to gauge market sentiment ahead of the New York open.
• Other futures traded on the CME, including contracts for gold and oil, were also disrupted. Shares in the exchange group fell in U.S. premarket trading.

What’s Next: Trading on the day after the Thanksgiving holiday is usually pretty muted. It is perhaps lucky that the outage happened on Black Friday—a trading day, but one without major market catalysts and likely to have only limited volumes in a holiday-shortened week. This is believed to be the first disruption of this scale to U.S. futures trading at CME in more than six years, since February 2019.

— Jack Denton

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Bargain-Hunting Kicks Off Holiday Shopping Season

Cash-strapped shoppers hunting for deals are expected to make this Black Friday the biggest ever. A record 186.9 million people plan to shop in-store and online from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, according to National Retail Federation estimates based on consumer surveys.

• In stores, Black Friday should be the single busiest shopping day of the holiday season, according to predictions from retail solutions company Sensormatic. Typically, Black Friday store traffic is twice the amount seen on the second-busiest shopping day of the season, the Saturday before Christmas.
• Deals are the biggest draw of the weekend, particularly for online shoppers because it’s easier to track and compare prices. The use of AI agents to help with shopping is also making e-commerce more appealing to deal-hunters, said Vivek Pandya, director of digital insights at Adobe.
• Adobe expects the average online discount will be about 28%, slightly below the average 30% off in 2024. Because of tariffs and consumer uncertainty, retailers took a leaner approach to stocking their holiday inventories this year, leaving less leeway for more aggressive markdowns.
• An Oppenheimer study of 19 retailers found that stores raised prices on 31% of items tracked since April, cut prices on 31%, and left prices unchanged on 38%. Promotions and discounts may eat more than usual into retailer profits given tariff-related higher costs, MarketWatch reported.

What’s Next: Adobe predicts Americans will spend $43.7 billion online in the five days from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday, up 6.3% from 2024. Shoppers are projected to spend $11.7 billion on Black Friday and another $14.2 billion on Cyber Monday.

— Sabrina Escobar and Janet H. Cho

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Crypto Firm Tied to Trump Family Dismisses Top Executives

A public company connected to a Trump-family backed crypto project has removed members of its top leadership, according to a government filing. Jonathan Hugh, who had been both acting CEO and chief financial officer at ALT5 Sigma, and chief operating officer Ron Pitters have been dismissed.

• The dismissals come after a sharp decline in ALT5’s share price and disclosure of an overseas legal matter. Hugh’s removal as acting CEO was made “without cause” the ALT5 filing said. Neither executive responded to requests for comment sent through LinkedIn.
• Since summer, ALT5 has been a partner of World Liberty Financial, a privately held crypto company. President Donald Trump and some family members own about 38% of World Liberty’s holding company, according to World Liberty’s website.
• Eric Trump and Don Trump Jr., sons of the president, rang the Nasdaq bell along with others involved in the two companies to celebrate the relationship. ALT5’s share price has declined by 72% since the Trump sons rang the bell, according to LSEG data.

What’s Next: ALT5 buys and holds crypto assets—in this case, World Liberty’s WLFI token. ALT5’s stock price is influenced by rises and falls in the underlying crypto asset. A spokesman for World Liberty said ALT5’s filing speaks for itself. “World Liberty Financial is excited about the future for Alt5,” said, David Wachsman.

— Matt Peterson

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Prediction Markets Are Hot, But Concerns Are Growing

Amid rising attention around prediction markets and online gambling, the stock trading app Robinhood Markets jumped back into the spotlight by unveiling a futures and derivatives exchange joint venture with Susquehanna International Group. It’s a way for Robinhood to expand its range of prediction contracts.

• Unlike traditional fixed-odds sportsbooks, prediction markets use peer-to-peer pricing, which reflects shifting consensus. Users can bet on the outcome of events a sportsbook typically wouldn’t offer. Robinhood already works with KalshiEX, a regulated exchange, for its prediction markets hub.
• This hub has quickly emerged as one of Robinhood’s fastest-growing product lines by revenue. In the year since its launch, nine billion contracts have been traded by more than one million customers, Robinhood says. The prediction markets business has topped $100 million in annualized revenue.
• Rival Polymarket can now offer event contracts to traders through brokerage firms, a move authorized by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. In a post on X, Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan called it “a key milestone for permeating the U.S. financial system.”
• Sportsbooks and prediction markets pose an underappreciated threat to credit card issuers and other lenders, Bank of America Securities analysts said recently, calling out lenders to lower-income borrowers such as Bread, Upstart, and One Main Financial plus student lenders Sallie Mae and Navient.

What’s Next: The BofA analysts said the ease of betting on a sportsbook app means gamblers can quickly accumulate losses without immediately realizing the damage done to their bank accounts. U.S. News found that 25% of sports bettors have been unable to pay a bill because of their wagering habits.

— Mackenzie Tatananni and Nick Devor

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—Newsletter edited by Liz Moyer, Patrick O’Donnell, Rupert Steiner