How I Made $5000 in the Stock Market

Big Tech Fatigue Puts Stocks in a Funk. The Next 2 Days Could Change That … or Make Things Worse.

Nov 19, 2025 06:46:00 -0500 by Martin Baccardax | #Markets

The S&P 500 is having its worst November since 2008. It can use some help. (NYSE)

Key Points

U.S. stocks are stuck in their longest long streak since the summer and the biggest pullback from a recent high since last spring as Wall Street heads into what could be a crucial two-day stretch for investors looking to protect their hard-fought gains into the end of the year.

Nvidia earnings after the close of trading Wednesday will provide investors with a guidepost on artificial-intelligence demand and, by extension, offer an assessment on sentiment with the market’s most important growth driver.

Investors are looking not only for the tech giant, now the world’s most valuable company, to post revenue in the October-ended quarter in the region of $55 billion, but also commentary that will cement CEO Jensen Huang’s forecast of around $500 billion in AI chip demand over the coming year.

But while a robust outlook might support the broader market, David Trainer, CEO of Nashville-based investment research group New Constructs, isn’t sure it will boost Nvidia stock itself.

“Nvidia is the single most important earnings report in the entire market, but all of the good is already priced in,” he added. “It’s an amazing company, but the stock is just too expensive.”

Nvidia’s market value, however, represents around 7% of the S&P 500 ’s entire weight, meaning even small moves in the stock have an outsized influence on broader market performance.

“Nvidia is the gravitational center of the AI universe and even if you don’t own it, you’re going to feel its pull,” said Jake Behan, head of capital markets at ETF provider Direxion.

That’s even more true now, given that options traders expect a swing of around 6.2% in Nvidia stock, in either direction, following the earnings report. That would be the biggest post-earnings move in more than a year.

It would also be set against a big jump in the market’s benchmark volatility gauge, the Cboe Group’s VIX index, which has risen more than 37% so far this month and suggests daily swings of around 100 points for the S&P 500 over the next month.

Those moves are likely to bleed into the early market session on Thursday, when investors will not only digest quarterly earnings from Walmart, the world’s biggest retailer, but also the first official monthly payroll report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics since September.

Walmart’s holiday spending outlook remains one of the market’s most-watched barometers of consumer health, as well as inflation pressures, while the jobs report will help shape bets on the chances of an interest-rate cut from the Federal Reserve in December.

Those bets, which have faded significantly over the past month, will also be informed by the release Wednesday of minutes from the Fed’s October policy meeting, where officials were split as to how the central bank should proceed on rates given the dearth of economic data during the U.S. government shutdown.

And that’s making it increasingly difficult to both peg the odds of a December rate cut and parse signals from the central bank’s current debate, according to Steve Englander, head of North America macro strategy at Standard Chartered.

“For markets, this means that pricing is likely to remain on the fence between hold and cut until the December meeting,” he said. “Moreover, it may also make it harder for the FOMC to deliver a dovish hold or a hawkish cut to mitigate the market impact of the decision.”

The complexities of both Nvidia’s update, the Fed’s next move, and the unknowns tied to developing risks in credit markets and bank liquidity all suggest a bumpy road ahead for stocks into the final weeks of the year.

Write to Martin Baccardax at martin.baccardax@barrons.com