Volatility Returns, TEFS Competition started! 17/11/2025

HOT stories for today

Market wrap:

• U.S. equities ended slightly lower on Friday, with tech shares paring earlier losses after a sharp intraday pullback. Major indexes slipped back below their early-November levels, halting roughly six months of steady gains heading into the weekend. With Washington back open but key economic reports still delayed, markets are pivoting attention to the December FOMC meeting. Rate-cut expectations remain evenly split, and a growing number of Fed officials have signaled discomfort with easing too soon. The Nasdaq Composite finished the week down 0.5%, dragged lower by Alphabet, Amazon, Broadcom, and Meta.
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 managed fractional weekly gains, despite suffering steep selloffs on Thursday. “We had expected the first couple of weeks of November to be choppy, and it certainly looks like we are in the midst of the chop,” said Tom Lee, head of research at Fundstrat. Earnings could serve as the next catalyst. Nvidia reports on Wednesday, offering another read on AI-driven spending, while Walmart and Home Depot results will give Wall Street a fresh look at the state of the U.S. consumer. Across Asia, markets traded mixed as investors weighed escalating geopolitical tensions between China and Japan.
  
                          Good luck to every trader competing in the TEFS Competition!

Volatility Returns: Turbulent week ahead

• U.S. stocks could face a volatile week as doubts around the durability of the artificial-intelligence trade collide with the release of long-delayed economic data following the government shutdown. Investors are questioning whether Thursday’s sharp selloff has further to run and how the pending data, led by September’s jobs report, will be interpreted in a market already uneasy about labor-market softness and sticky inflation.
•  Last week’s rotation into value stocks sent the Dow above 48,000 for the first time, but strategists viewed the shift as defensive rather than bullish. Sentiment deteriorated by week’s end as expectations for a December Fed rate cut faded, pushing the Dow more than 300 points lower on Friday and leaving the S&P 500 slightly down. Analysts caution that the data backlog may carry less weight if investors perceive it as outdated, or may be treated as confirmation of economic cracks if it signals labor-market weakness. With few clear catalysts ahead of the Fed’s December meeting, markets are likely to remain hypersensitive to both AI headlines and incoming indicators.

Stocks on the move:

• Cidara Therapeutics (CDTX): Shares of Cidara surged 103% after Merck (MRK) agreed to buy the company for close to $9.2 billion in cash. Merck fell 1%.
• Avadel Pharmaceuticals (AVDL): Danish drugmaker Lundbeck (LUN) offered to acquire the pharmaceutical company for as much as $23 per share, topping biotech firm Alkermes’ (ALKS) earlier bid, sending Avadel 19% higher.
• Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD): The HBO and CNN parent rose 3% after the Wall Street Journal reported that Paramount Global/Skydance (PARA), Netflix (NFLX) and Comcast (CMCSA) are preparing bids for the media company. Warner Bros. Discovery has an initial deadline for first-round bids of Nov. 20, the Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.
• Walmart (WMT): The nation’s largest retailer fell 1% after CEO Doug McMillon said he would step down, effective Feb. 1, to be succeeded by John Furner.

Watchlist: NVDA, AMAT, META, COIN, GOOGL, WMT, XPEV

Key Economic Events Today:

EST time

08:30 am: USD FOMC Empire State Manufacturing Index
09:30 am: USD FOMC Member William, Jefferson Speaks
10:00 am: USD Construction Spending
03:35 pm: USD FOMC Member Waller Speaks


Earnings

BMO (Before Market Open): Xpeng Inc (XPEV), H World Group (HTHT)
AMC (After Market Close): Trip.com (TCOM), AECOM (ACM), XP Inc. (XP)


The TEFS Analyst team wishes you a successful day!