Morning Brew December 1 2025

Good morning,

It is strange that the scheduled events in the first week of December are so few and far between. International PMI and some earnings are the most important events, while the Nonfarm Payroll, which would normally be released, will be delayed by two weeks, and the inflation data on Friday is for September. Asian PMI overnight disappointed, with China remaining in contraction.

The Fed is in lockdown, and speakers are to refrain from statements until the FOMC on the 10th of December. I do not expect a calm week, though. Politics, position adjustments, and regular savings plans will have an impact. Precious metals can be expected to be volatile after an incredible week. Overnight, silver has already traded within a 4% range, and we are currently trading at 57. Bitcoin is down 4% this morning. Indexes are trading lower this morning as it seems the recent trade deals failed to increase demand enough to push PMI`s into expansion.

December has often been  a good month for stocks: over the last ten years, we have had four negative and six positive Decembers in the S&P 500. Particularly interesting was 2018, when the Fed caught the markets off guard and the S&P 500 lost 9.2%.

On Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.6% to 47,716.42 points, the S&P 500 gained 0.5% to 6,849.09 points, and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.65%. For the week, the S&P rose 3.7%, the Dow 3.2%, and the Nasdaq a whopping 4.9%. For November, it was +0.13% for the S&P, 0.3% for the Dow, and the Nasdaq lost 1.5%.

All of the major S&P 500 sectors were up except healthcare, with pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly down 2.6%. Intel helped lead the S&P 500 with a 10.2% gain after an estimate that Intel would be shipping Apple processors in 2027.

Fed funds futures show 87% odds of a December rate cut, causing the USD index to lose 0.6% for the week to 99.48, marking its worst performance since July. The pound had its best week in three months and rose above 1.32.

Silver rose more than 6% on Friday, platinum 4%, and gold 1.75%.

Ole Wrote his commodity update on Friday in the CME outage:  Commodities weekly: Metals take the lead as index hits three-year high

• The Bloomberg Commodity Total Return Index rose 1.4% on the week and 15% year-to-date, reaching highest level since June 2022 with metals leading while energy lagged on diesel weakness.
• Precious and transition metals—including gold, silver, platinum and copper—are benefiting from US rate cut expectations, a weaker dollar, US debt concerns and a rising demand for debasement hedges.
• Copper’s structural tightness story is strengthening, with forecasters increasingly projecting a deficit by 2026, made worse by more than 60% of visible exchange stocks now concentrated in US warehouses.
• Idiosyncratic drivers boosted silver and platinum—China’s depleted silver inventories and the launch of new PGM futures—while the energy sector remains weighed down by diesel weakness, even as low crude prices risk setting up the next supply-driven rebound. 

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday that the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela should be considered "closed in its entirety," but gave no further details.

AI-powered shopping tools helped drive a surge in U.S. online spending on Black Friday, as shoppers bypassed crowded stores and turned to chatbots to compare prices and secure discounts amid concerns about tariff-driven price hikes. U.S. shoppers spent a record $11.8 billion online, up 9.1% from 2024.

Tomorrow we will publish our outrageous predictions, we have to admit that after the past year it was hard to bome up with a something that sounds outrageous but I believe we did well.

Monday, December 1 2025

International PMI (CN, AU, JP, IT, FR, DE, EU, UK, CA US)

Tuesday December 2 2025

EU Inflation

Marvell. Gitlab, Crowdstrike

Wednesday December 3 2025

International PMI.

Kroger, Dollar General, TD Bank,

Dollartree, Macy`s, Salesforce, Snowflake,

Thursday December 4 2025

US Initial Jobless Claims,

Friday December 5 2025

DE Industrial Orders, EU GDP, September US PCE

Victorias Secret