The only Thanksgiving song that I know is “Over the River and Through the Woods”, and I need to bone up on the lyrics. There ought to be a song about “Turkey Coming”. Maybe to the tune of “Eli’s Coming” or “The Wells Fargo Wagon”? But I digress. It’s really the pie I’m looking forward to after all. We wish you all a wonderful and warm Thanksgiving, with or without songs.
But before we get to the whipped cream, we should take a look at what happened in the economy and the markets last week. Stocks ended the week lower, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average down almost 2%, while the Nasdaq fell 2.7%. The Nasdaq is now lower by 6.1% for November so far. Bonds held steady while oil prices fell slightly.
The big news was in bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin was down 10% in the past week alone and has erased all 2025 gains and then some. Its record high in October was $126,000, while as of Friday, it stood at about $85,000. Other cryptos followed suit. Why? A couple of reasons: more bitcoin than ever is held in ETFs, which are easy to sell if you get concerned; and a couple of people testified before Congress that cryptos are Ponzi schemes; and people are hopeful that the Fed will cut interest rates in December, while bitcoin used to be thought of as an inflation hedge (to be employed when interest rates are rising).
But stock markets also reflect crypto movements. Normally when stocks dip, some investors buy. But if they’re also losing money in bitcoin, perhaps they don’t have the liquid funds to do that. And if by any chance they own stocks or bitcoin on margin, the drop in prices will cause extra damage and force further sales.
Last week we discussed the institutional sales of Nvidia stock by Softbank and Peter Thiel, and the Nvidia put buying by Michael Burry. But then Nvidia crushed its earnings and guidance reports Wednesday after the bell and everybody except Peter Thiel and Michael Burry heaved a sigh of relief, if sighs can be heaved. Thursday’s Nvidia rally was short-lived however, as markets turned negative again in the afternoon.
But along came the Federal Reserve to save the day on Friday! New York Fed President John Williams said, “I still see room for a further adjustment in the near term to the target range for the federal-funds rate.” And stocks rose in a broad rally on hopes of a near-term rate cut. Odds of that cut rose from 39% to 70%.
So that was the week. This week is likely to be quieter, with markets closed on Thursday, and just a half-day of trading on Friday.
We finally received the September jobs report, just seven weeks late. It showed 119,000 net new jobs created, but jobs reports for July and August were revised downward by more than 30,000. The unemployment rate rose from 4.3% to 4.4%. It was reported that we will probably never receive the October jobs report that should have been delivered on November 7th.
And even though the government is open again, USA Today reports that Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) users will have to APPLY AGAIN for benefits.
An update on the gold toilet: it sold for $12.1 million at the same Sotheby’s auction where Gustav Klimt’s painting, “Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer” sold for $236.4 (a modern art record). And then on Thursday, a Frida Kahlo self-portrait sold at Sotheby’s for $54.7 million – the most over for a female artist at auction.
For the week ending on November 21st, the S&P closed at 6,602, the Nasdaq at 22,273, and the Dow Jones at 46,245. The yield on the ten-year Treasury Note finished at 4.058%. U.S. crude oil cost $58.21 per barrel, N.Y. gold cost $4,065.00 per ounce, and one Euro was worth $1.15.
Elizabeth E. Cook
Partner, Diastole Wealth Management
News and information presented here was gathered from sources believed, but not guaranteed, to be reliable, including (but not limited to) Barron’s, The Wall Street Journal, Yahoo Finance, Axios, CNN, Bloomberg, USA Today, The Hill, The AP, Reuters, The New York Times, The Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Washington Post, The Economist, Business Insider, and The Hustle. If you have questions, please call Diastole at 203.458.5220, or reply to this email to reach me, Liz Cook.
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