Renewed hope for another rate cut in December and refreshed faith in the AI trade carried stocks to a second day of gains to start Thanksgiving week. The Nasdaq led the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average higher as investors, traders and speculators await more shutdown-delayed economic data amid a slowdown for earnings flow.
Markets are closed on Thursday for the Thanksgiving holiday, while the stock and bond markets will close early on Friday. Still, the economic calendar includes initial jobless claims for the week ending November 21. We'll also see retail sales and the Producer Price Index (PPI) for September, as well as consumer sentiment data from The Conference Board on Tuesday morning.
"The big bounce in the stock market is being fueled by rising odds for a December 10 key interest rate cut," observes Louis Navellier of Navellier & Associates, citing public statements from New York Fed President John Williams and Fed Governors Stephen Miran and Christopher Waller in support of lower interest rates because of a weakening labor market. That's despite a solid September jobs report.
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Futures market pricing currently shows an 80.9% probability the central bank will trim the target range for the federal funds rate by another 25 basis points to 3.50% to 3.75% at the next Fed meeting in December. That's up from 71.0% on Friday and 42.4% last Monday, according to CME FedWatch.
Navellier also notes a consensus forecast for a 0.4% month-over-month retail sales increase in September. "Walmart (WMT, -1.2%) has already provided positive guidance," he adds, "and I also expect Costco (COST, -1.4%) to report strong same-store sales growth." Costco will report fiscal 2026 first-quarter results in mid-December and provide additional insight on the U.S. consumer.
At Monday's closing bell, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite had climbed 2.7% to 22,872, the broader S&P 500 had added 1.6% at 6,705, and the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average had risen 0.4% to 46,448.
Elon Musk tweets himself even richer
Tesla (TSLA, +6.8%) stock took a big leap toward the lofty goals that define CEO Elon Musk's $1 trillion pay package on a single tweet from CEO Elon Musk. TSLA was up as much as 7.5% intraday and added nearly $90 billion to its market cap by the time the closing bell rang. The stock surge lifted Musk's net worth by about $20 billion.
"Most people don't know that Tesla has had an advanced AI chip and board engineering team for many years," Musk tweeted on Sunday. "That team has already designed and deployed several million AI chips in our cars and data centers. These chips are what enable Tesla to be the leader in real-world AI."
The CEO added that Tesla is using version AI4 of its chips in its cars, is "close to taping out" AI5, and is "starting work" on AI6. "Our goal is to bring a new AI chip design to volume production every 12 months," Musk said.
"We expect to build chips at higher volumes ultimately than all other AI chips combined. Read that sentence again, as I'm not kidding," he advised, predicting that Tesla's chips "will profoundly change the world in positive ways."
After Nvidia
The earnings front is relatively quiet in the aftermath of another revolutionary report from Nvidia (NVDA, +2.1%) and "Godfather of AI" Jensen Huang last Wednesday. But a couple of other AI-related and retail names are notable for the perspective they offer on the big picture.
Mid-cap semiconductor stock Semtech (SMTC, +9.7%) and AI-powered robotics outfit Symbotic (SYMB, +3.4%) report after the close today, while Best Buy (BBY, -1.1%) and Kohl's (KSS, +0.3%) are up before the opening bell on Tuesday.
Tesla competitor Li Auto (LI, +0.6%) and farm equipment maker Deere (DE, +0.01%) report on Wednesday morning.
Things might get a little more explosive when NANO Nuclear Energy (NNE, +1.7%) – an emerging leader of a nuclear revolution underpinned by the AI revolution – reports fiscal 2025 fourth-quarter results after the close on Wednesday.
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