39cb5fd0 cbee 11f0 bfb5 8a2f268ba012

Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq open muted as rocky month draws to an end, CME restores trading

by

U.S. stocks opened weak on Friday as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange resumed trading after a data center outage as it closed out a lackluster holiday week and a down month.

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

CME Group restored operations after live trading in futures and options was disrupted in several markets around the world, including US Treasuries and US crude oil. Individual stocks appeared to trade without any problems. The disruption lasted until 8:30 a.m. ET, when CME said it had resolved the outage.

Stocks have surged this week as traders anticipate the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates at its December meeting, less than two weeks away. Renewed confidence in AI trading provided a tailwind for tech names ahead of Thursday’s trading close for the Thanksgiving holiday.

But when trading resumes on Friday, Wall Street indexes will be looking at a month of declines. Megacap tech names suffered a sharp decline in November as investors reassessed how quickly AI-powered businesses can turn hype into sustainable profits.

As of late Wednesday, the Dow and S&P 500 were both down slightly for the month, on track to end a six-month winning streak. The Nasdaq, down 2% year to date, is on track to post a seven-month gain.

As November comes to a close, analysts are releasing their stock-market forecasts for the year ahead. Deutsche Bank has set a target of 8,000 for the S&P 500 by the end of 2026, which is at the high end of forecasts. HSBC and JP Morgan expect the benchmark index to hover around 7,500 points.

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

stay 11 updates

  • Stock reactions to third-quarter earnings have been more severe than usual

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

    Although the majority (83%) of earnings surprises have been to the upside, investors have been less excited about earnings increases and more concerned about earnings disappointments, as indicated by reactions in individual stock names.

    According to FactSet’s John Butters, as of November 21, S&P 500 companies have outperformed third-quarter earnings, seeing their share price rise an average of 0.4% in the four-day period surrounding their earnings release. This is less than the five-year average growth of 0.9%.

    For companies that missed earnings estimates, the reaction has been extremely negative.

    Companies that report lower-than-expected earnings have seen their stocks decline an average of 5% during the same period (from two days before the earnings release to two days after). This is much lower than the five-year average decline of 2.6%.

    Concerns about an artificial intelligence bubble, slowing consumer spending and a Federal Reserve rate cut floated throughout the season. And high expectations created a high bar for some individual names like Nvidia (NVDA).

    Read live coverage of corporate earnings,

  • Seasonal hiring provides some relief from labor market problems

    Yahoo Finance’s Emma Ockerman reports:

    Many Americans are expected to visit stores and fill carts online this holiday shopping season. Very few people may be able to take seasonal work to support that bonus.

    As layoff announcements continue to grow and the unemployment rate continues to rise, hiring appears to be slowing this year in general during the holiday season, with data from multiple sources suggesting that hiring plans may be at their lowest level in more than a decade.

    Challenger, Gray & Christmas said in its most recent labor report that seasonal hiring plans as of October were at their lowest level since the global outplacement firm began tracking them in 2012.

    The National Retail Federation, a trade group, also said in a press call earlier this month that while strong consumer spending is expected to continue through the holiday season, plans to bring on additional employees could be at the “lowest level in more than 15 years.” Retailers were expected to bring on 265,000 to 365,000 seasonal workers in 2024, compared to 442,000.

    However, interest in seasonal work remains fairly high — 27% higher at the end of September than a year earlier — as Americans struggle to find employment across the board, according to Corey Stahle, a senior economist at Indeed Hiring Lab.

    … “I think it’s pretty clear that we’re still well below where we were a few years ago in those seasonal jobs,” Stahle said. “Clearly there are very few opportunities overall.”

    Read more here,

  • Stocks opened with slight gains at the end of the holiday week.

    US stocks opened with slight gains to close out the short holiday week and month of November.

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

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

    Markets opened shortly after CME Group resumed operations after live trading in futures and options was disrupted in many markets around the world, including US Treasuries and US crude oil.

    The stock market will close early at 1 pm ET

  • CME Group resumes trading after outage plunges markets into darkness

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

    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%, while Nasdaq futures rose 0.3%.

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

    CME reopened its forex platform EBS at about 7 a.m. ET, but trading for the rest of its markets, including U.S. Treasuries and crude futures, was affected until about 8:30 a.m. ET. CME blamed the outage on a cooling system failure at a data center near Chicago.

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

    Yahoo Finance’s Eli Canals writes:

    Read more here.

  • Jenny McCall

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

  • CME partially resumes operations with restart of FX platform

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

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

    “BrokerTech US Actives and BrokerTech EU are now open. Due to a cooling issue in the CyrusOne data centers, our other markets are paused for the time being,” the notice said.

    The CME futures shutdown affected markets in the US and around the world, with US Treasury and WTI crude futures also affected as bond and commodity platforms went dark.

    According to CME, a cooling problem at CyrusOne data centers was the origin of the outage.

  • Jenny McCall

    Premarket Trending Tickers: Oracle, Alphabet and Strategy

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

    Alphabet (GOOG, The stock rose 1% in premarket trading Friday. The tech giant has been in the spotlight in recent times for its AI efforts and its challenge to Nvidia’s (NVDA) leadership with its new AI chips and Gemini 3 chatbot.

    strategy (MSTR, The stock rose 2% before the bell. Strategy&, which is the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, has seen its stock drop 5% over the past five days due to Bitcoin’s decline. Bitcoin is now back above $90,000.

  • Gold heads for fourth consecutive monthly win as rate cut hopes rise

    Bloomberg reports:

    Gold (GC=F) is on track for its fourth monthly gain as expectations of another interest rate cut in the US increase.

    A data center outage halted futures and options trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange for several hours, impacting liquidity in precious metals markets and leading to choppy sessions with larger-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 from Federal Reserve officials and the release of delayed economic data have supported the case for lower borrowing costs, which typically benefits gold because it does not pay interest. Swaps traders are pricing in a more than 80% chance of a quarter-point cut in December.

    Read more here,

  • Commodity trading halted as CME futures halted due to data center issue

    Bloomberg reports:

    Read more here.

  • Oil saw its biggest one-month decline in two years

    Bloomberg reports:

    Read more here.



<a href=

Leave a Comment