Edward Meir's Week in Review for AMU: Nov. 23, 2025

A long-awaited earnings report from Nvidia that came out after the close on Wednesday seemed at first to sooth concerns about “bubble talk”. And company CEO Jenson Huang dismissed it as just that. Heartened by the earnings numbers, equity markets opened sharply higher on Thursday.

But a few hours later, stocks staged a dramatic U-turn to finish down on the day. For the week, shares of Nvidia finished off 3%. The S&P 500 and the Dow both ended down by about 2%. NASDAQ ended down by 2.7% and was the biggest casualty of the week. Smaller-cap indexes were more resilient. The Russell 2000 and the S&P Mid Cap 400 posted only modest declines.

What gives?

Investors have doubts about AI companies’ massive spending, much of it channeled in circuitous fashion within a small group of well-heeled firms. AI firms have announced more than $1.5 trillion in deals in the past few months. Billions more are in the pipeline, with some of this financing spilling over into the private equity markets.

Naturally, some think they have seen this movie before. A similarly heady environment preceded a sharp retreat during the dot.com era. In fact, the Wall Street Journal cited remarks by Cisco ex-CEO John Chambers from August of 2000 to draw an eerie parallel: Shortly after Cisco reported earnings growth of more than 60% that month (similar to Nvidia’s), Chambers confidently predicted that the “Second Industrial Revolution is just beginning.” A year later, Cisco’s stock was down by nearly 70% amid a broad slump.

Of course, there are differences between the two eras. The most important: firms in the AI space enjoy much better capitalization and strong demand tailwinds, something that eluded many internet firms. Nevertheless, current investors are deciding to take some chips off the table heading into year end in an attempt to secure the still sizable profits they have enjoyed.

Last week’s macro data

In the US treasury market, yields were fairly well-behaved last week. The two-year settled down 10 basis points at 3.51%. The 10-year ended down nine at 4.06%. This was a good showing given that the September nonfarm payroll report came in on the stronger side of estimates (at 119,000). Bond markets shrugged of this stronger number. Why? Because August was revised lower, bringing the total May–August job gain to a paltry 55,000.

Moreover, the October reading will almost certainly be poor because we saw quite a few layoff announcements last month. Most of September’s new jobs were in healthcare and social assistance (57,000), leisure and hospitality (47,000), government (22,000, yes, an increase even here!), and construction (19,000). Employment declined in transportation and warehousing (-25,000), professional and business services (-20,000), and, importantly, manufacturing (-6,000). Average hourly earnings increased by a mere 0.2%, meaning that real wages continue to lag inflation.

The nonfarm payroll number immediately dropped the odds for a rate cut in December to below 40%. But then, just a day later, John Williams, the president of the New York Fed (and an ally of Jerome Powell), came out to say he would favor lowering rates sooner than later. Those remarks led to a modest bounce in equities on Friday. They also raised the odds of a December cut to 74%.

Metals and steel

In the base metals space, prices experienced a mostly down week. Copper ended off by 0.7% and hit a two-month low at one point. (CME copper prices are now around $5/lb.) There were more substantial declines in aluminum (down 2.5%) and nickel (down by almost 3%). Zinc closed down by 1%. Lead was the worst performer, losing about 4%. Only tin managed to eke out a modest gain. US steel prices edged higher and bucked the general selling – with HSS material looking particularly strong.

In the precious metal space, gold finished just below $4,080/ounce on Friday, down $15/ounce on the week. There were modest declines in silver, platinum, and palladium. All three traded in sympathy with a weaker base metals complex.

Energy and geopolitics

In energy, oil prices settled at a one-month low by week’s end as investors evaluated a 28-point peace plan that the Trump administration forwarded to the warring parties. It could conceivably result in Russian crude flowing back into the market. We will not go into to all the details here. But the proposal is definitely stacked against the Ukrainians.

The plan prompted President Zelensky to warn his people that the country was at a difficult crossroads. Ukraine faces a choice of “losing dignity or … a major partner.” What’s more, Kyiv has until Thursday to respond. Although President Trump said over the weekend that the deadline was not final. In addition, the EU (who were not consulted in advance) said the US plan needs to be reworked and that Ukrainian territory should not be ceded.

The Russians have not formally responded either. We suspect there will be more back-and-forth before all this is over. But whatever happens, the pressure is very much on Ukraine. There is little in the plan that favors them. In addition, a brewing corruption scandal is not helping the government’s image – or its negotiating leverage with the US. Neither is the fact that the Russians are claiming they have encircled 5,000 Ukrainian troops in an area where intense fighting is going on.

By Friday, Brent settled at $62.56. WTI ended at $58.06. Both contracts ended down 3% on the week. Elsewhere, distillates lost about eight cents on the week, while gasoline futures ended down by $0.13. In the natural gas market, prices ended the week flat at $4.58. But values are impressively holding up at multi-month highs. Natural gas stocks drew by a modest 14 billion cubic feet this past week and were a nonevent.

Macro readings and other news from the past week

• Over the weekend, Bloomberg reported that BHP has made a renewed takeover approach to Anglo American, which in turn is in the process of taking over Teck Resources. Teck and Anglo shareholders should vote on the buyout on Dec. 9. BHP tried to acquire Anglo American for $49 billion last year. But it walked away after a five-week attempt to acquire the company did not get far. We shall see how this second bid turns out.
• Novelis’s aluminum plant in Oswego, N.Y., caught fire yet again last week, marking the second such incident since September. Novelis said it was too early to determine the impact of the restart timeline. But clearly there is a safety issue at the facility. We will see how this impacts Midwest premiums, which remain stuck in the mid-80s.
• In trade developments, the Trump administration is considering alternatives should the Supreme Court rule against its use of tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Alternatives include not only Section 232 and Section 301 tariffs, which the administration has deployed before, but also Section 122 – a little known authority that had to date rarely appeared in the tariff conversation. (Editor’s note: AMU and SMU hosted a Community Chat on tariffs earlier this month. A recording of the webinar is here. A writeup of the conversation is here.)
• Reuters reports that China’s rare earth magnet exports in October fell 5.2% from a month earlier. But shipments to the US surged to a nine-month high of 656 tons. This is not a particularly reassuring pattern because it shows China is actively managing export flows, particularly to the US. As a result, Beijing could easily “turn off the faucet” if things with Washington take a turn for the worse.
• In the copper world, Freeport-McMoRan announced last week that it plans to resume production at Grasberg by July 2026, in line with previous guidance. “While the [Grasberg] incident was unprecedented in our history and with no indications of human error, we are humbled by this tragedy and resolve to use the learnings to address the confluence of factors and conditions that led to the event,” CEO Kathleen Quirk told investors. Meanwhile, PT Freeport Indonesia’s combined copper and gold output for next year is expected to be roughly in line with 2025 levels. And so it seems that production will likely ramp up sharply during the second half of the year to make up for lost time. The company expects Grasberg production to increase through 2026 and 2027, with average annual volumes of around 1.6 billion pounds of copper and 1.3 million ounces of gold expected for 2027-2029.
• We attended the American Tin Trade Association dinner last week in New York and heard an interesting presentation on tin from esteemed metals analyst Andy Home of Reuters. Andy notes that tin used in solder literally holds circuit boards (and by extension, the internet) in place. And tin does this on its own given that lead is now no longer being used in solder. And yet, the majors have almost no appetite for mining tin. They deem the market for the metal too small for them. Because of this lack of interest, Andy noted that 40% of tin production still comes from artisanal mining, whose production in most cases gets taken over (or expropriated) by either larger domestic miners or the government. Meanwhile, tin demand continues to expand at a steady rate, while stocks are low, keeping the market tight. In addition, most of the world’s free exports come from just three countries – Indonesia, Peru, and a struggling Myanmar.
• Commerzbank expects copper and aluminum prices to hit $12,000/ton and $3,200/ton, respectively next year. Zinc is expected to breach $3,000/ton. But nickel prices will remain fairly restrained, with values ending the year at $16,000/ton.
• In US manufacturing news, the flash November S&P Global manufacturing PMI came in at 51.9, down from last month’s 52.5 reading. The service PMI clocked in at 55, down slightly from last month’s 54.8 reading. Meanwhile, the November Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index fell to -1.7, but this was better than the prior reading of -12.8. The November Empire State manufacturing index came in at 18.7, also better than last month’s 10.7 reading. August factory orders rose by 1.4% from -1.3% in the previous month. Business spending seems to be on an upswing, evidenced by back-to-back increases in new orders for nondefense capital goods for both July and August.
• In housing news, US existing home sales increased 1.2% month-over-month in October to 4.10 million. Sales were up 1.7% on a year-over-year basis. Separately, total construction spending increased 0.2% month-over-month in August but was down 1.6% y/y. And finally, mortgage applications dropped by 5.2% wk/wk, with refinance applications down 7% and purchase applications down 2%.
• The final University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment reading for November increased to 51.0 from the preliminary reading of 50.3. However, consumer sentiment remains under pressure by the persistence of high prices and weak inflation-adjusted incomes.
• Initial jobless claims for the latest reporting week decreased by 8,000 to 220,000. However, continuing claims increased by 28,000 to 1.974 million, reaching their highest levels since November 6, 2021.
• The US trade deficit came in at $59 billion in August from $78 billion in July as imports fell by $18 billion versus July levels. Exports remained roughly flat M/M. The numbers should factor favorably for the Q3 GDP report.
• Out of Europe, the European Commission is expecting the Eurozone to grow at 1.3% this year, up from a previous April forecast of .9%. Growth in 2026 is expected to slow to 1.2%, down from a previous forecast of 1.4%. “The steady, albeit modest—growth observed so far highlights the resilience of the EU economy in the face of a challenging external environment,” the Commission said. “Inflation is nearing the ECB target, and financing conditions have improved.” Inflation is expected to slow to 2.1% in 2025 and to 1.9% in 2026.
• Eurozone service activity expanded at its quickest pace in 1.5 years. But weak demand sent manufacturing back into contraction territory. Service PMI came in at 53.1 for November, but manufacturing dipped to 49.7 from 50. The Eurozone composite S&P Global index declined slightly to 52.4 in November from a two-year high of 52.5 in October. Germany’s economy lost momentum in November as manufacturing and services both contracted. In France, business activity stabilized as a rise in services offset a drop in manufacturing. In the UK, activity was very restrained because companies are on hold ahead of the government’s budget, which is expected to be out this week.

This week’s US macro readings

Nothing comes out on Monday. But on Tuesday, we get September US retail sales (expected at 0.3%, last 0.6%, with the ex-auto number expected at 0.3%.) September PPI comes out Tuesday as well (expected at 0.3%, last -0.1%). So, too, does the September S&P Case-Shiller home price index, along with the November consumer confidence reading (expected at 93.4, last 94.6) and the October pending home sales number (expected at unchanged). On Wednesday, we get weekly initial jobless claims (expected at 225,000, last 220,000) as well as September durable goods orders (expected at 0.3%, last 2.9%). Nothing comes out Thursday. Friday brings us the Chicago PMI reading for November and August business inventories.

We wish our readers a pleasant Thanksgiving and holiday week.