Review Preview: The Gravy Train

Nov 24, 2025 19:55:00 -0500 by Teresa Rivas | #Markets #Review & Preview

It’s All Relative. Stocks rallied to start this holiday-shortened week. So while the broader market is still on track to have its worst November since the Great Recession, investors have more to be grateful for than they did last week.

The S&P 500 added 1.6% while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite led with a 2.7% gain. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 202 points, or 0.4%.

With more earnings and reads on inflation and consumer health to come later this week, it was a relatively quiet day, but enthusiasm about tech helped bolster the market’s returns.

“Despite concerns about valuations and capex spending, the fundamental picture for Big Tech looks strong heading into 2026,” writes Ameriprise Chief Market Strategist Anthony Saglimbene. “Google’s recent Gemini 3 launch reflects only the most recent example of AI innovation and positive application development, countering the skepticism narrative. The model’s top scores on industry benchmarks and favorable analyst commentary suggest that the AI theme should remain a central driver for technology stocks well into next year.”

Of course, while Nvidia’s blowout quarter wasn’t an immediate relief to the market last week, it still bolstered the bull case for AI. In fact, so did most earnings reports this season, which may further explain Monday’s upbeat mood.

With some 95% of companies already accounted for, S&P 500 earnings per share growth is tracking over 13% for the third quarter, compared with the 7.4% consensus forecast, while revenue grew 8.4%, also crushing expectations. “Bottom line, these numbers are quite impressive, particularly given the current economic and earnings cycles have been going awhile post-Covid-19,” writes Jeffrey Buchbinder, chief equity strategist at LPL Financial. “Expectations keep rising, the bar keeps going higher, and corporate America continues to clear it handily.”

There are a few earnings results due out later this week—mainly from retailers—and investors will no doubt be paying attention to September retail sales and consumer confidence readings due Tuesday. Still, with just two days until Thanksgiving, they “might tell most of this week’s story before many participants head out ahead of the break,” notes Joe Mazzola, head trading and derivatives strategist at Charles Schwab.

Company

Last

Chg

Chg%

Dow Jones Industrial Average

47,102.97

654.70

1.41%

S&P 500 Index

6,761.46

56.34

0.84%

NASDAQ Composite Index

22,992.80

120.79

0.53%

Market Data as of

The Hot Stock: Broadcom +11.1%
The Biggest Loser: Carnival -6.8%

Best Sector: Technology +2.5%
Worst Sector: Consumer Staples -1.2%

Created with Highcharts 9.0.1Monday, Nov. 24Index performanceSource: FactSetAs of Nov. 26, 4 p.m. ET

Created with Highcharts 9.0.1Nov. 2600.20.40.60.81.01.2%Nasdaq CompositeDow industrialsS&P 500

Home for the Holidays

It’s just a few days until Thanksgiving, the busiest travel holiday of the year, and more people than ever will be on the move.

Not only has travel bounced back in the years since the pandemic, but it’s breaking new records. The Federal Aviation Administration is predicting the busiest Thanksgiving travel period in 15 years, served by some 360,000 flights. Tuesday, Nov. 25 is expected to be the busiest day as people try to get home ahead of the holiday, with 52,000 flights that day alone.

The postpandemic period has been a tough one for travelers, given the surge in holiday traffic. That’s made many people unwilling to deal with extra frustrations —a trend that’s alive and well according to recent travel data. As my colleague Laura Sanicola reports, the end of the government shutdown (during which flight cancellations and delays were highly publicized) brought a surge in bookings. In other words, once consumers felt they would be able to travel smoothly, they rushed to book trips.

Many of the flights may have been booked last-minute as the shutdown ended and the worst of planned flight restricted were averted. Bookings had been down 3.3% compared with last year for the period starting the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and ending on the Sunday after, according to data analyzed through mid-November by the analytics firm Cirium. The government shutdown ended on Nov. 12.

That’s good news not only for fliers, but for airline stocks, as well. Although the stock market as a whole generally tends to shrug off shutdowns, airline stocks can be a different story. This time, U.S. passenger airline stocks—represented by the S&P 500 Passenger Airlines Index —held up fairly well, but are lagging behind the index in 2025, having dropped roughly 3.5% this year.

And their problems aren’t necessarily over. “Fourth-quarter earnings should detail how much of a financial toll the shutdown took on airlines, as well as how they are managing routes amid a continuing, nationwide shortage of air-traffic controllers that has continued since the shutdown was lifted,” she writes.

While travel may always be stressful, for now it seems like the worst of the headaches are coming to an end. That’s certainly worth giving thanks for.

The Calendar

Alibaba Group Holding, Analog Devices, Autodesk, Best Buy, Burlington Stores, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Dell Technologies, HP Inc., J.M. Smucker, NetApp, Nutanix, Urban Outfitters, Workday, and Zscaler release earnings tomorrow.

The Census Bureau reports retail sales data for September. In August retail sales rose 0.6% month over month to $732 billion.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the producer price index for September. The PPI increased 2.6% from a year earlier in August. The core PPI, which excludes food and energy prices, rose 2.8%.

S&P Cotality releases its National Home Price Index for September. Home prices rose 1.5% year over year in August, led once again by New York and Chicago, which had annual home appreciation of 6.1% and 5.9%, respectively. The laggards among metro areas tracked by S&P were Tampa Bay and Phoenix, with declines of 3.3% and 1.7%.

The Conference Board releases its Consumer Confidence Index for November. Consensus estimate is for a 93.3 reading, down from October’s 94.6. That was the lowest reading in 4.5 years outside of the tariff turmoil related readings from March and April of this year.

What We’re Reading Today

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