Monthly Market Wrap (November 2025)

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November 2025 was a month where the index hid the story. The S&P 500 closed the month at 6,849.09, almost exactly where it started at 6,840.20. In between, it fell 4.4% to a low close of 6,538.76 on November 20, which was the same day Nvidia rallied on record numbers in the morning and closed 3.2% lower.

Under that flat line, money moved hard, and it moved in directions that a quick glance at the index on December 1 would never have shown you. Bitcoin lost about 20% in the month and Ether about 26%. Alphabet gained 13.9% while Nvidia lost 12.6%. Silver futures rose 17.6%. And the US government reopened on November 12 after a 43-day shutdown, the longest on record, which left the Fed reading a very thin stack of data.

In this post, I’m going to go through what moved in stocks, central banks, politics, earnings, commodities and crypto. The numbers come first, and the reasons only where a source gives one.

Global stock market trends

So how does an index go nowhere while its most-watched stock drops 13%? You look at the sectors.

The health care sector fund, XLV, rose 9.3% in November, while the technology sector fund, XLK, fell 4.8%. That is a gap of 14 percentage points between two slices of the same index, in a single month. Consumer staples gained 4.1% and materials gained 4.4%, so the defensive and cyclical corners both did better than tech.

The Nasdaq Composite fell 1.5% for the month, to 23,365.69. At its low close of 22,078.05 on November 20, it was 6.9% below where October ended. The Dow Jones Industrial Average did better, adding 0.3%, and on November 12 it closed at 48,254.82, its highest close of 2025. Small caps held up too, with the Russell 2000 up 0.8% and closing the month at 2,500.43, its best close of November.

The VIX, which measures how much traders pay for options that protect against S&P 500 falls, tells the story of the middle of the month. It closed at 26.42 on November 20, up from 17.44 at the end of October. Eight days later it was back at 16.35. The whole scare lasted about a week.

Asia had a harder month. Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 4.1%, from 52,411 to 50,254, and Korea’s KOSPI fell 4.4%. Taiwan’s index slipped 2.1%. Do note that the markets that fell hardest were the ones that had run hardest. Even after its November drop, the KOSPI was still up 63.6% for the year.

Europe was flat. The Stoxx 600 added 0.8%, Germany’s DAX lost 0.5%, and both the FTSE 100 and France’s CAC 40 finished within a few points of where they began. In China, the Shanghai Composite fell 1.7% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was almost unchanged, down 0.2%.

Macroeconomic and central bank developments

What does a central bank do when it cannot see the data? In November, the Fed had to find out.

The federal shutdown ran from October 1 to November 12, 43 days in total. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said its October household survey was never collected and will not be collected after the fact. When the September jobs report finally came out on November 20, more than a month late, it showed payrolls up 119,000 and an unemployment rate of 4.4%.

The Fed did not meet in November. Its last decision was on October 29, when it cut its target range by a quarter point to 3.75% to 4.00%. That vote had dissents pulling in opposite directions. Stephen Miran wanted a half-point cut, and Jeffrey Schmid wanted no change at all. The Fed also said it would stop shrinking its bond holdings on December 1. The next meeting was set for December 9 and 10.

So the market spent November listening to speeches. With no meeting and much of the usual data missing, a few sentences from a Fed official were the closest thing to new information that traders had. The one that got the most attention came from New York Fed President John Williams on November 21. He said he still saw “room for a further adjustment in the near term” to the policy rate. In plain English, a senior Fed official was open to another cut soon.

Consumers were in a sour mood. The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index fell 7.1% in November, to 88.7.

Treasury yields barely moved. Given everything else going on, that is worth noticing. The 10-year yield went from 4.11% to 4.02%, a fall of 9 basis points, and the 2-year yield went from 3.60% to 3.47%. A basis point is one hundredth of a percentage point. Because short rates fell a little faster than long rates, the gap between the 10-year and 2-year yields widened from 0.51 to 0.55 percentage points. I would not read much into moves this small. They are within the normal noise of a month.

Across the Atlantic, the Bank of England kept Bank Rate at 4% at the meeting that ended on November 5, but only just. The vote was 5 to 4, and the four dissenters wanted a cut to 3.75%. The minutes said that “CPI inflation is judged to have peaked”. The European Central Bank had held its deposit rate at 2.00% on October 30.

The Bank of Japan held its policy rate at around 0.5% on October 30, in a 7 to 2 vote, with both dissenters proposing 0.75%. The yen weakened through November. The dollar bought 154.05 yen at the end of October and 156.17 yen at the end of November, after touching 157.41 on November 20.

Geopolitical developments

The biggest political event for US markets was the end of the shutdown. The bill signed on November 12 funds the government until January 30, so the same fight can come back early in the new year. During the shutdown, roughly 900,000 federal employees were furloughed.

On trade, the US and China put numbers on the truce their leaders agreed in Busan on October 30. The US cut its fentanyl-related tariff on Chinese imports from 20% to 10%, effective November 10, through executive orders signed on November 4. In return, China agreed to suspend its new rare earth export controls for one year. Rare earths go into the magnets inside electric motors, which is why that pause mattered well beyond China and the US.

In Europe, the US and Ukraine met in Geneva on November 23 to work on a 28-point peace plan put forward by Washington. Both sides described the result as an “updated and refined” framework, with key issues, including security guarantees, still open. Final decisions were left to the two presidents.

Corporate earnings and stock market movers

Nvidia (NVDA). This was the report the whole market waited for. On November 19, Nvidia posted record quarterly revenue of $57.0 billion, up 62% from a year earlier, with data center revenue of $51.2 billion. Earnings were $1.30 per diluted share, and the company guided to fourth-quarter revenue of $65.0 billion, plus or minus 2%. The next morning the stock traded as high as $196.00, about 5% above the prior close of $186.52. Then it reversed. The stock closed at $180.64, down 3.2% on the day. Nvidia finished November down 12.6%. Record results and a falling stock in the same 24 hours. That is what it looks like when the good news is already in the price.

Alphabet (GOOGL). Google launched Gemini 3, its newest AI model, on November 18, and for the first time shipped a new Gemini model inside Search on day one. On November 24 the shares rose 6.3% to $318.58. The next day, The Information reported that Meta was in talks to buy AI chips from Alphabet. On November 25, Alphabet closed at $323.44, while Nvidia fell 2.6% and AMD fell 4.1%. Alphabet ended the month up 13.9%, the best November of the big tech names in this wrap.

Walmart (WMT). On November 20, Walmart reported revenue of $179.5 billion, up 5.8%. Walmart US comparable sales grew 4.5% and global e-commerce grew 27%. Adjusted earnings came in at $0.62 a share. The company raised its full-year outlook, with net sales growth now 4.8% to 5.1% in constant currency and adjusted earnings of $2.58 to $2.63 a share. The stock jumped 6.5% that day and finished the month up 9.2%.

Target (TGT). Target’s report on November 19 went the other way. Net sales fell 1.5% to $25.3 billion, and comparable sales fell 2.7%. Adjusted earnings were $1.78 a share, against $1.85 a year earlier. The company now expects full-year adjusted earnings of about $7.00 to $8.00 a share. The stock fell 2.8% on the day and was down 2.3% for the month. Put Walmart and Target side by side and you get two very different reads on the same American shopper in the same week, with one raising its forecast for the year and the other reporting falling sales.

Home Depot (HD). On November 18, Home Depot reported sales of $41.4 billion, up 2.8%, with comparable sales up just 0.2%. Adjusted earnings were $3.74 a share, down from $3.78. It now expects full-year adjusted earnings to fall about 5% from fiscal 2024. The shares fell 6.0% that day, and by the same 6.0% for the month.

Palantir (PLTR). Palantir reported on November 3. Revenue grew 63% to $1.181 billion, and US commercial revenue grew 121% to $397 million. Adjusted earnings were $0.21 a share, and the company raised its full-year revenue guidance to $4.396 to $4.400 billion. The stock still fell 7.9% the next day. By its November 21 close of $154.85, it was 25% below its November 3 close, and it finished the month down 16.0%. Like Nvidia, this was a case of strong numbers meeting a high bar.

Kohl’s (KSS). Kohl’s had the biggest one-day move of any earnings report in this wrap. On November 25 it reported net sales down 2.8% to $3.4 billion, comparable sales down 1.7%, and adjusted earnings of $0.10 a share. It also raised its full-year outlook, now expecting adjusted earnings of $1.25 to $1.45 a share. The stock jumped 42.5% that day and ended the month up 51.1%. A falling top line and a 42% rally in the same story tells you how low expectations had become.

Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF). Also on November 25, Abercrombie reported record third-quarter net sales of $1.3 billion, up 7%. Hollister brands grew 16% while Abercrombie brands fell 2%. Earnings of $2.36 a share beat the company’s own outlook range, even after 210 basis points of tariff costs on its operating margin. The stock rose 37.5% on the day and 34.9% for the month.

The rest of the AI trade. AI-linked stocks split apart in November. Oracle fell 23.1%, AMD fell 15.1% and CoreWeave fell 45.3%, while Broadcom rose 9.0%. Microsoft lost 5.0%, Amazon 4.5% and Tesla 5.8%, while Apple gained 3.1%. When stocks that share a story start moving apart like this, it is worth asking what each one actually sells.

Commodities, bonds, and other assets

Oil drifted lower. West Texas Intermediate crude went from $61.75 to $58.58 a barrel, down 5.1%, and Brent went from $65.44 to $64.07, down 2.1%. Brent’s lowest print of the month was $61.88 on November 12. Moves of 2% to 5% in oil get a reason attached in the news almost every day. Most of those reasons are written after the fact, so I will leave it at the numbers.

Precious metals were the strong side. Gold futures rose 6.5% to $4,254.90 an ounce, though they were still below their October 20 close of $4,359.40. Silver futures did much more, rising 17.6% to $56.45, above their October high of $53.02 and their highest close of 2025 up to that point. Copper futures added 2.4% and natural gas futures rose 17.6%.

In bonds, the 10-year real yield, which is the yield on inflation-protected Treasuries, edged down from 1.81% to 1.79%. The high-yield credit spread, the extra yield investors demand to hold junk bonds instead of Treasuries, widened from 2.94 to 3.20 percentage points by November 18, then narrowed back to 2.92 by the end of the month. That round trip lines up with the dip in stocks.

The dollar index ended almost unchanged, from 99.80 to 99.46. The euro rose from $1.1541 to $1.1600 and the pound from $1.3141 to $1.3239.

One last oddity to close the month. On November 28, a cooling failure at a CyrusOne data center near Chicago halted trading at CME Group for hours, freezing futures prices across oil, Treasuries, US stock indices, the Nikkei and gold. It is not every day that the plumbing of the market breaks, and this time it was the air conditioning.

Bitcoin and Ethereum

If you only looked at the S&P 500 in November, you would never guess Bitcoin had its worst month of the year.

Bitcoin closed October at $110,052 and November at $87,447, a fall of 20.5%. That was its worst calendar month of 2025 so far. The low came on November 21 at $84,826. Bitcoin’s 2025 high was $124,720 on October 5, so by November 30 it was about 30% below that peak, and down 9.8% for the year.

To put that in real terms, $10,000 of Bitcoin bought at the October 5 close, right at the top of the year, and simply held would have been worth about $7,011 by the close on November 30.

Ether had an even rougher month. It went from $3,872 to $2,855, a fall of 26.3%, with a low of $2,772 on November 21. Its 2025 high was $4,831 on August 21, so it ended November about 41% below that level and down 17.3% for the year.

Now put that next to gold, which rose 6.5% in the same month. Bitcoin is often called digital gold. In November 2025 the two moved in opposite directions, by a wide margin. That does not settle the debate, but it is a useful data point for anyone who holds one as a hedge for the other.

Concluding thoughts

November 2025 looked calm from far away and felt anything but calm up close. The S&P 500 finished flat, yet it fell 4.4% on the way, the VIX went from 17 to 26 and back, and Bitcoin had its worst month of the year.

Earnings were the clearest lesson. Nvidia and Palantir posted strong numbers and fell. Kohl’s posted falling sales and jumped 42% in a day. In each case, the stock moved on what the numbers did to expectations.

So here are a few questions to take into December. Which of your stocks would have survived that 4.4% dip without you touching them? Did you react to the November 20 reversal, or did you sit through it? And if a record quarter could not hold Nvidia up, what does that tell you about trading the headline?

Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

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