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Nasdaq, S&P 500, Dow rise toward a 5th straight day of gains to cap a rocky month


US stocks made small gains on Friday as a holiday-shortened week and volatile month drew to a close.

The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) led the market higher on Black Friday, gaining around 0.5% through mid-morning trading. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) and generalist S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose by roughly 4%.

Earlier in the day, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange restored trading operations after a long outage disrupted live trading in futures and options across several markets worldwide, including US Treasurys and US crude oil. The disruption lasted until 8:30 a.m. ET, when CME said it resolved the outage.

Stocks have rebounded sharply this week as traders ramped up bets that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates at its meeting in December, less than two weeks away. Renewed faith in the AI trade provided a tailwind for tech names in the run-up to Thursday’s trading shutdown for the Thanksgiving holiday.

However, the Wall Street indexes were staring down a losing month. A sharp cooldown in megacap tech names has led to a decline for November as investors reassessed how quickly AI-driven businesses can translate hype into sustainable profits.

As of midday trading on Friday, the S&P 500 was little changed for November following a six-month winning streak. The Nasdaq was on track to snap a seven-month run of gains with losses of nearly 2%. The Dow was roughly unchanged in November.

As November wraps up, analysts are rolling out their stock-market predictions for the year ahead. Deutsche Bank has set a target for the S&P 500 of 8,000 by the end of 2026, at the highest end of forecasts. HSBC and JPMorgan expect the benchmark index to hover around the 7,500 mark.

Markets will close early on Friday, at 1 p.m. ET, with no major earnings or economic data releases on the docket.

LIVE 17 updates

  • Amazon, e-commerce stocks rise as shoppers hunt for Black Friday deals

    E-commerce retail stocks led the sector on Black Friday as one of the biggest holiday shopping days of the year was underway.

    Amazon (AMZN) and Target (TGT) rose 1.3%, and Walmart (WMT) added 1%. Online pet retailer Chewy (CHWY) also rose 1.4%

    Department stores like Macy’s (M), which reports earnings next week, and Kohl’s (KSS) also saw gains.

    Among apparel brands, Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) and Victoria’s Secret (VSCO) both popped over 3%. However, other brands like Gap (GAP) and Urban Outfitters (URBN) slipped heading into the early market close.

    Adobe lead analyst Vivek Pandya told Yahoo Finance that he expects Black Friday to kick off a strong holiday shopping season, during which consumers are estimated to spend $253 billion.

    According to Adobe, consumers already spent $6 billion on Thanksgiving Day.

    “We have consumers leaning on the online space to get a sense of where their best discounts can be,” Pandya said. “They really perceive the online space to provide really favorable pricing. And given the consumer and how they’ve been managing and spending across events, we really anticipate a lot of momentum for Black Friday today.”

  • Jake Conley

    AI data centers’ power demand is driving up electricity prices and crushing aluminum smelters

    AI data centers need aluminum for server racks, cooling units, and other crucial pieces of equipment. But the power demands of the data centers is driving up electricity costs and crushing the aluminum industry.

    Yahoo Finance’s Jake Conley reports:

    Read more here.

  • Ines Ferré

    Alphabet outperforms ‘Mag 7’ and overall tech sector for November

    Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) has been the ‘Mag 7’ outlier this month as the tech giant’s stock has risen a whopping 13%.

    For the month of November, tech (XLK) has underperformed, but Alphabet has beaten every one of the “Magnificent 7” stocks.

    Alphabet’s Google Gemini AI product and its artificial intelligence chips called TPUs have raised optimism that the Big Tech player is a rising competitor to ChatGPT maker OpenAI, and even chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA).

    The AI chip heavyweight is on track to close out the month with losses of roughly 12%, while Meta (META) and Tesla (TSLA) are also on pace to close out with monthly losses.

  • Ines Ferré

    Gold rises above $4,200 on hopes of Fed rate cut

    Gold (GC=F) futures sat near $4,200 per ounce on Friday, on pace to close out its fourth straight month of gains on growing expectations of a December rate cut, paired with ‘run-it-hot’ government policies heading into 2026.

    Dovish commentary from Federal Reserve officials have raised the odds that policy makers will decide to cut interest rates by at least 25 basis points next month. Since gold doesn’t produce income, its relative attractiveness improves when interest rates fall.

    An easing US dollar (DX-Y. NYB) and expectations of continued fiscal spending may be supporting bullion prices.

    “We have a tremendous deficit.. we also have a tremendous amount of government spending and on top of that, we have a tremendous amount of central bank buying,” Michele Schneider, Marketgauge.com chief strategist told Yahoo Finance on Friday morning.

  • US equity funds book first weekly outflow in 6 weeks

    Reuters reports:

    Read more here.

  • Jake Conley

    Wall Street banks see oil prices falling

    Wall Street’s biggest banks are expecting 2026 to see oil prices fall as a long-anticipated supply glut fully realizes. Yahoo Finance’s Jake Conley reports:

    Read more here.

  • Stock reactions to Q3 earnings have been more severe than usual

    S&P 500 company earnings in the third quarter have largely been solid. And with nearly all of the reports in, the 13.4% earnings growth rate so far is likely to hold.

    Although most (83%) of the earnings surprises have been to the upside, investors have been less enthusiastic about earnings beats and more punishing about earnings disappointments, as indicated by the reactions in individual stock names.

    According to FactSet’s John Butters, as of Nov. 21, S&P 500 companies that have reported third quarter earnings beats have seen their stock price increase by an average of 0.4% in the four-day period around their earnings release. This is less than the five-year average increase of 0.9%.

    For companies that miss earnings estimates, the reaction has been disproportionately negative.

    Companies that report earnings below expectations have seen their stock decrease by 5% on average during the same period (two days before the earnings release through two days after). This is well below the five-year average decrease of 2.6%.

    Concerns about an artificial intelligence bubble, slowing consumer spending, and Federal Reserve rate cuts were in flux throughout the season. And sky-high expectations created a high bar for some individual names, such as Nvidia (NVDA).

    Read out live coverage of corporate earnings.

  • Seasonal hiring offers little reprieve for labor market woes

    Yahoo Finance’s Emma Ockerman reports:

    Read more here.

  • Stocks open with a muted gain to close out holiday week

    US stocks opened with light gains to close the holiday-shortened week and month of November.

    The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) led stocks higher on Black Friday, gaining around 0.4% in the first minutes of trading. The generalist S&P 500 (^GSPC) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) both gained 0.2%.

    Stocks made a strong rebound this week as traders piled into bets that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates at its meeting in December, less than two weeks away, and renewed their faith in the AI trade.

    Markets opened shortly after the CME Group restored operations after a long outage disrupted live trading in futures and options across several markets worldwide, including US Treasurys and US crude oil.

    The stock market will close early at 1 p.m. ET

  • CME Group restarts trading after outage caused markets to go dark

    The CME Group said all its markets were back up and trading after a data center cooling problem led to a widespread outage that lasted several hours.

    Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM=F), S&P 500 (ES=F), and Nasdaq 100 (NQ=F) were steady when trading resumed. Dow and S&P 500 futures rose 0.1%, while Nasdaq futures gained 0.3%.

    WTI crude oil futures (CL=F) gained 0.3%; Brent futures (BZ=F) edged up by 0.1%.

    CME reopened its foreign-exchange platform EBS at around 7 a.m. ET, but trading for the rest of its markets, including US Treasurys and crude futures, was affected until roughly 8:30 a.m. ET. CME attributed the outage to a cooling system glitch at a data center near Chicago.

  • Wall Street’s 2026 forecasts are rolling in — and some see the S&P 500 hitting 8,000

    Yahoo Finance’s Allie Canal writes:

    Read more here.

  • Jenny McCall

    Good morning. Here’s what’s happening today.

  • CME partially restores operations with restart of FX platform

    The CME (CME) has started to gradually restore operations early Friday after halting trading of futures and options for several hours, thanks to a technical glitch.

    Foreign-exchange platform EBS opened for trading at around 7 a.m. ET, according to a notice on the CME website. There was no indication of when other markets stalled by the outage could expect a restart.

    “BrokerTec US Actives and BrokerTec EU are now open. Due to a cooling issue at CyrusOne data centers, our other markets are currently halted,” the notice said.

    Markets in the US and across the world were impacted by the CME futures shutdown, with US Treasurys and WTI crude futures among those impacted as bond and commodities platforms went dark.

    A cooling issue at CyrusOne data centers was the root of the stoppage, according to CME.

  • Jenny McCall

    Premarket trending tickers: Oracle, Alphabet and Strategy

    Oracle (ORCL) stock fell more than 1% before the bell on Friday. Morgan Stanley flagged credit market concerns for the tech stock on Thursday, and things will only get worse in 2026 unless Oracle can reassure investors about its AI spending spree.

    Alphabet (GOOG) stock rose 1% in premarket trading on Friday. Attention has turned to the tech giant over recent days due to its AI efforts and challenging Nvidia (NVDA)’s leadership, with its new AI chips and Gemini 3 chatbot.

    Strategy (MSTR) stock rose 2% before the bell. Strategy, which is the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, has seen it’s stock fall 5% over the last five days due to bitcoin’s decline. Bitcoin has now moved back up above $90,000.

  • Gold edges toward fourth straight monthly win as rate-cut hopes bloom

    Bloomberg reports:

    Gold (GC=F) edged higher, on track for a fourth monthly gain, on heightened expectations for another interest-rate cut in the US.

    The trading of futures and options on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange stopped for several hours due to a data center fault, affecting liquidity in precious metals markets and leading to choppy sessions with wider-than-usual bid-ask spreads.

    Bullion was near $4,160 an ounce on Friday, up more than 2% for the week. A series of comments by Federal Reserve officials and the release of delayed economic data have supported the case for lower borrowing costs, which typically benefit gold as it doesn’t pay interest. Swap traders are pricing in a more-than-80% chance of a quarter-point cut in December.

    Read more here.

  • Commodities trading halted as data centre issue puts pause on CME futures

    Bloomberg reports:

    Read more here.

  • Oil sees largest single-month drop in over two years

    Bloomberg reports:

    Read more here.



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