COMMENTARY:
- After a November feast of gains, the market looks like the relative who’s already unbuttoned their pants and is eyeing the pumpkin pie anyway. Investor sentiment is sitting somewhere between “I think I’m full” and “just one more slice.” The S&P500 was up 3.7% this week, carrying a YTD gain of 16.5% headed into December.
- For the week ending 11/25/25, the Consumer Discretionary gained about 4.9%, driven primarily by strong holiday-shopping optimism, upbeat early Black Friday data, and a rebound in key mega-cap discretionary names such as Amazon (+5.47%) and Tesla (+10.0%), along with Home Depot (+3.9%). During Thanksgiving week, stocks tied to online retail, travel, and leisure were supported by record e commerce volumes, strong demand for big-ticket electronics and home goods, and robust travel and dining activity.
- Investors spent the week deciding whether AI giants were still the main course or just leftovers after a long feast—but for now, the holiday mood and solid fundamentals kept the Technology Sector (+4.8%) driven by mega-cap AI and cloud leaders, helped by upbeat sentiment around tech going into the holiday and relief that recent earnings cleared a high bar. NVIDIA, Microsoft, and Apple together making up nearly 40% of the sector, so positive moves in these three names contributed the bulk of the weekly gain.
- Energy Sector eked out a gain of roughly 1.1%, making it the “cold mashed potatoes” of sector performance compared with the feast in growth and consumer names. Crude oil prices were soft to sideways as traders weighed weak demand indicators, low seasonal gasoline use, and hopes for progress in geopolitical flashpoints that could ease supply risks, all of which capped upside for energy equities. Exxon Mobil (-1.0%), Chevron (+0.8%), and ConocoPhillips (+1.5), which together account for about half the sectors weight.
- This year’s sector returns have been driven mainly by three forces: powerful AI and tech led earnings plus easing long term rate expectations that boosted growth sectors like Technology (+23.1%), Communication Services (+19.2%) and Utilities (+19.7%) helped lift and have outperformed the S&P 500.
