DOW JONES–Traders are expecting cautious and rather volatile business on the stock exchanges in the last week of November. With practically only three weeks of liquid trading left before the end of the year, the willingness of fund managers to take new risks is decreasing. In addition, the US trading week is also shortened because of the “Thanksgiving” holiday on Thursday. Securing what has been achieved after a very positive year is now likely to be the top priority for investors. Even the oft-quoted Christmas rally is always popular, but you don’t want to rely on it.
The current problem on the stock markets is that they have run out of topics: With Nvidia’s business figures and the monthly US labor market report, there were two chances last week – both were stalled. Especially with the negative reaction to Nvidia, the markets showed very rational behavior, so investors don’t have to worry about an “AI crash”. Because the topic of AI is simply being treated more and more objectively in the markets.
Good sign – AI is assessed as more rational
Just because Nvidia makes billions doesn’t mean other companies do the same. Central questions remain open, such as the possible “over-investment” of Nvidia’s customers. Whether Google, Meta, Oracle and everyone else will ever see reasonable returns on their investments is anyone’s guess. The end customer is currently still excited about the funny pictures that he can produce with AI, but how much will he be willing to pay for the inevitable one? Monetization what it will look like is anyone’s guess.
Spontaneous surveys on the financial market show that, apart from Perplexity as a kind of “Google Search 3.0” in trading, AI is hardly used across the industry. Tools for evaluating long balance sheet PDFs are popular with analysts, and pattern recognition in charts is popular in trading. However, these are specialized applications that will not attract millions of users to subscribe. The question of the “return on investment” on the customer side is likely to replace the topic of Nvidia profits in the future.
US data drives interest rate speculation
Beyond Nvidia, the issue of “US interest rates” is also putting pressure on technology stocks. Ultimately, the yield curve determines the valuation of stocks. Here the stock market had developed the fantasy that further cuts were a foregone conclusion. This is now being further priced out, with around 63 percent of the market currently expecting US interest rates to remain unchanged at the meeting on December 10th. The head of the central bank, Jerome Powell, had already spoken to the Interest rate cut stressed in October that this was unsafe. Investors should therefore be prepared for the fact that the flood of US economic data will always be interpreted with a view to possible interest rate steps. Until the decisive Fed meeting in less than three weeks, things are likely to go up and down volatile, depending on the data.
Among other things, the Chicago Fed National Activity Index for October and the consumer confidence for November, which is important for retail, are due in the USA next week. A flood of data is planned for the Wednesday before the US holiday, such as new orders, the revision of US GDP data, new construction sales and the Chicago Purchasing Managers Index – topped off in the evening by the Fed’s Beige Book. Many market participants are likely to use Thanksgiving for a long weekend – so the data situation will probably no longer be priced correctly on the stock exchanges next week.
In Germany, the Ifo business climate index is due on Monday; in Europe, people are primarily looking at the new consumer prices from various countries on Friday.
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 21, 2025 06:49 ET (11:49 GMT)