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

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

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U.S. stocks posted small gains on Friday as a holiday-shortened week and a volatile month drew to a close.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) led the market higher on Black Friday, gaining about 0.5% in mid-morning trading. The Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) and the broader S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose about 4%.

Earlier in the day, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange resumed trading operations after a lengthy outage disrupted live trading of futures and options in several markets around the world, including US Treasurys and US crude. The outage lasted until 8:30 a.m. ET, when CME said it had resolved the outage.

Stocks rebounded sharply this week as traders increased bets that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates at its December meeting, less than two weeks away. Renewed confidence in artificial intelligence trading provided a tailwind for tech names ahead of Thursday’s close of business for the Thanksgiving holiday.

However, Wall Street indices were looking down at a losing month. A sharp decline in megacap tech names led to a decline for November as investors reassessed how quickly AI-powered businesses can turn sustainable profits.

As of midday trading Friday, the S&P 500 was little changed for November after a six-month winning streak. The Nasdaq was on course to snap a seven-month winning streak with losses of nearly 2 percent. The Dow was roughly flat in November.

As November draws to a close, analysts release their stock market forecasts for the coming year. Deutsche Bank has set a target for the S&P 500 of 8,000 by the end of 2026, at the high end of its forecast. HSBC and JPMorgan expect the benchmark to hover around 7,500.

Markets will close early Friday at 1:00 PM ET with no major earnings or economic data released.

LIVE 16 updates

  • AI data center power demand drives up electricity prices and crushes aluminum smelters

    AI data centers need aluminum for server racks, cooling units and other essential equipment. But data center power demand is driving up electricity costs and crushing the aluminum industry.

    Jake Conley of Yahoo Finance reports:

    Read more here.

  • Ines Ferré

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

    Alphabet ( GOOG , GOOGL ) was the “Mag 7” outlier this month, as shares of the tech giant surged 13%.

    For the month of November, technology ( XLK ) underperformed, but Alphabet outperformed each of the “Magnificent 7” stocks.

    Alphabet’s Google product Gemini AI 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).

    Chip heavyweight AI is on track to close the month with losses of around 12%, while Meta (META) and Tesla (TSLA) are also on track to close with monthly losses.

  • Ines Ferré

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

    Gold futures ( GC=F ) were near $4,200 an ounce on Friday, on pace to end a fourth straight month of gains on growing expectations of a December interest rate cut, along with government policy “whacked” in 2026.

    The dovish comments from Federal Reserve officials raised the odds that policymakers will decide to cut interest rates by at least 25 basis points next month. Because gold does not produce income, its relative attractiveness improves when interest rates fall.

    A softening US dollar (DX-Y. NYB) and expectations of continued fiscal spending could support bullion prices.

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

  • US equity funds see first weekly flow in 6 weeks

    Reuters reports:

    Read more here.

  • Jake Conley

    Wall Street banks see oil prices falling

    Wall Street’s biggest banks expect oil prices to fall in 2026 as a long-awaited supply glut takes full effect. Jake Conley of Yahoo Finance reports:

    Read more here.

  • Stocks’ reactions to Q3 earnings were more severe than usual

    S&P 500 company earnings in the third quarter were mostly solid. And by almost all reports, the year-to-date earnings growth rate of 13.4% is likely to hold.

    While most (83%) of earnings surprises were to the upside, investors were less excited about earnings beats and more chastened about earnings disappointments, as indicated by the reactions of individual stock names.

    According to FactSet’s John Butters, as of Nov. 21, S&P 500 companies that reported third-quarter earnings saw their stock prices rise an average of 0.4% in the four-day period surrounding the earnings release. This is lower than the five-year average increase of 0.9%.

    For companies that did not estimate earnings, the reaction was disproportionately negative.

    Companies reporting earnings below expectations saw their stock fall 5% on average over the same period (from two days before the earnings release to two days after). This is well below the five-year average decline of 2.6%.

    Concerns about an AI bubble, slowing consumer spending and Federal Reserve rate cuts have been in flux all season. And skyrocketing expectations have set the bar high for some individual names like Nvidia (NVDA).

    Read live coverage of corporate earnings.

  • Seasonal employment offers some respite from labor market problems

    Yahoo Finance’s Emma Ockerman reports:

    Read more here.

  • Stocks open with modest gains to close out the holiday week

    U.S. stocks opened with slight gains to close out the holiday-shortened week and month of November.

    The Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) led rising stocks on Black Friday, gaining about 0.4% in early trading. The broad S&P 500 (^GSPC) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) both gained 0.2%.

    Stocks rebounded strongly this week as traders bet the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates at its December meeting, less than two weeks away, and renewed confidence in AI trading.

    Markets opened shortly after CME Group resumed operations after a lengthy outage disrupted live futures and options trading in several markets around the world, including Treasurys and U.S. crude.

    The stock market will close early at 1:00 PM ET

  • CME Group resumes trading after an outage caused markets to go dark

    CME Group said all its markets were back 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 flat when trading resumed. Dow and S&P 500 futures rose 0.1 percent, while Nasdaq futures rose 0.3 percent.

    WTI crude futures (CL=F) gained 0.3%; Brent futures (BZ=F) rose 0.1%.

    CME reopened its EBS foreign exchange platform around 7:00 a.m. ET, but trading for the rest of its markets, including U.S. Treasuries and crude oil futures, was affected until around 8:30 a.m. ET. CME attributed the outage to a problem in the cooling system at a data center near Chicago.

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

    Allie Canal of Yahoo Finance writes:

    Read more here.

  • Jenny McCall

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

  • CME is partially restoring operations with the restart of the FX platform

    CME ( CME ) began gradually restoring operations early Friday after halting futures and options trading for several hours due to a technical glitch.

    The EBS exchange opened for trading around 7 a.m. ET, according to a notice on CME’s website. There was no indication of when other markets stalled by the outage might expect a restart.

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

    US and global markets were hit by the close of CME futures, US Treasuries and WTI crude futures among those affected as bond and commodity platforms went dark.

    A cooling problem at CyrusOne’s data centers was at the root of the shutdown, according to CME.

  • Jenny McCall

    Pre-Trade Trend Tickers: Oracle, Alphabet and Strategy

    oracle (ORCL) stocks were down more than 1 percent before the bell on Friday. Morgan Stanley on Thursday signaled credit market concerns for tech stocks, and things will only get worse in 2026 unless Oracle can reassure investors about its AI spending.

    the alphabet (Google) Shares rose 1 percent in premarket trading Friday. Attention has turned to the tech giant in recent days for its AI efforts and challenging lead Nvidia ( NVDA ) with its new AI chips and Gemini 3 chatbot.

    strategy (MSTR) the stock rose 2% before the bell. Strategy, which is the largest corporation holding bitcoin, has seen its shares fall 5% over the past five days due to bitcoin’s decline. Bitcoin moved above $90,000 again.

  • Gold is closing in on a fourth consecutive monthly win as hopes of a rate cut blossom

    Bloomberg reports:

    Gold (GC=F) rose, on track for a fourth monthly gain, on heightened expectations for a further US interest rate cut.

    Futures and options trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange was halted for several hours due to a data center outage, 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 percent for the week. A series of comments by Federal Reserve officials and the release of delayed economic data bolstered the case for lower borrowing costs, which typically benefit gold because it pays no interest. Swap traders are pricing in a more than 80% chance of a quarter-point cut in December.

    Read more here.

  • Commodity trading has been halted as the data center issue puts a pause on CME futures

    Bloomberg reports:

    Read more here.

  • Oil posts biggest one-month drop in two years

    Bloomberg reports:

    Read more here.

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