AI Throws a Tantrum, Your Wallet Feels the Pain, and Turkey Can't Save Us Now

Hey everyone,

So… funny story. Yesterday’s newsletter didn’t go out—it just decided to take a detour through the void where lost socks and government budget plans go. In other words, our email system face-planted. Hard.

But seriously: thank you. Every open, every read, every “huh, that was actually kinda helpful” moment keeps this little community growing. We appreciate you more than Nvidia appreciates data centers.

We’ve got some big things cooking for 2026—like actually-big things, not “we changed our logo and called it innovation” big. And we’re excited to have you riding shotgun with us as we level this thing up.

As always, feedback is welcome. Encouraged. Begged for. Yelled into the void. You get it.

Thanks for sticking with us.

—The Tracking the Trade Team

Okay, so picture this: You show up to Thanksgiving dinner with the PERFECT green bean casserole—like, you nailed it, Martha Stewart would weep, and your family still complains it needs more French fried onions. That was Nvidia last week. They posted numbers that would make Scrooge McDuck jealous, beat every estimate by a country mile, and Wall Street STILL sold the stock like it was a timeshare presentation.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin nosedived harder than your uncle after his third slice of pumpkin pie, dropping over 10% and making crypto bros everywhere suddenly very interested in their shoelaces. And retailers? Oh boy. They basically gathered around a campfire to tell us ghost stories about the American consumer, who's apparently either tapped out, stressed out, or just flat-out done with this economy.

Alright, let's talk about what happened to your 401(k) last week, and maybe grab a stress ball first.

The S&P 500 limped to a close around 6,603, down about 1.9% for the week. That's its worst performance in weeks, like showing up to karaoke night and forgetting ALL the words to "Don't Stop Believin'."

The Dow Jones Industrial Average wasn't much better, shedding roughly 1.8% to close near 46,245. That's the industrial average basically saying, "You know what? I'm tired. I'm going home."

But the real carnage? The Nasdaq. Oh man, the Nasdaq got WRECKED down about 2.7% to close around 22,273. That's its third straight weekly decline and the biggest weekly drop since April. When tech stocks sneeze, apparently everybody catches the flu, gets bronchitis, AND loses their sense of smell.

And Bitcoin? [deep breath] Bitcoin went from chilling above $95,500 at the start of the week to face planting around $83,00 by the end of the week. That's a DROP of over 10%! Crypto Twitter went from "HODL to the moon!" to "Maybe I should've listened to my mom about savings bonds" real quick.

The only thing that behaved? The ten-year Treasury yield eased to about 4.07% by the end of the week, as investors ran for safety faster than shoppers rushing for a Black Friday TV deal.

It's like the market watched Ted Lasso's team lose faith mid-season, except this isn't a feel-good TV show, this is YOUR MONEY.

So Bitcoin decided to ruin everyone's Saturday brunch by crashing from above $95,500 to below $83,000. Why? Because after hitting nearly $110,000 earlier in November, people decided, "Eh, let's take our profits and peace out."

This sparked the usual panic—regulators wagging their fingers going "We TOLD you crypto was too volatile!", traders checking their portfolios like they just got a text from their ex, and leverage unwinding faster than a cheap sweater.

For the rest of us watching from the sidelines? It was a reminder that Bitcoin is STILL the wild child of investments—super fun at the party, but don't be surprised when it throws up in your hedges.

Here's where things get RIDICULOUS. Nvidia reports Q3 earnings that would make Zeus jealous: Data Center revenue hit $51.2B (up 66%!), with net income soaring ~60% and CEO Jensen Huang standing there in his leather jacket basically saying, "AI bubble? What bubble? My Blackwell GPUs are selling like hot cakes at IHOP!"

They CRUSHED estimates. They beat the spread. They dunked on expectations.

And what did Wall Street do? Sold the stock at a 3% loss the next day.

Let me repeat that: NVIDIA BEAT EARNINGS AND STILL GOT PUNISHED.

It's like acing your final exam and your professor still giving you a B-minus because "Well, we expected you to cure cancer, TOO." Nvidia's in a no-win situation where even perfection gets a participation trophy.

Walmart posted great earnings—sales up, profits good, guidance raised. Awesome, right? But then CFO John David Rainey grabbed the mic and basically said: "Folks... people are STRUGGLING out here."

He straight-up admitted the gap between rich shoppers and poor shoppers is the WIDEST it's been in nearly a decade. Lower-income families are trading down, stretching every dollar like taffy, and basically playing financial Tetris with their groceries.

And get this—food prices are STILL about 25% higher than before COVID. That's not inflation anymore, that's... expensive life. Walmart's trying to keep prices low, but tariffs are biting them in the wallet, too.

The stock jumped 6.5% on earnings day because Walmart's WINNING market share—but it gave back gains Friday because, well, winning broke customers is like being the tallest kid in kindergarten. Congrats, but...

Reports came out that Warren Buffett's crew at Berkshire Hathaway is feeling pretty good about Google (Alphabet). This is HUGE because when the Oracle of Omaha likes something, people pay attention—it's like getting a Michelin star for your investment portfolio.

While Bitcoin was busy doing backflips off a cliff, Buffett was over there going, "Eh, I'll stick with the companies that actually make money, thanks." Classic Buffett move.

Home Depot missed earnings estimates for the THIRD quarter in a row and had to slash its full-year forecast from "down 2%" to "down 5%." CEO Ted Decker basically blamed everything: no big storms to drive repair sales, consumers too nervous to renovate, and a housing market so frozen it makes Antarctica look tropical.

Comparable sales crawled up just 0.1%—that's basically a rounding error—and transactions actually DROPPED 1.4%. When even Home Depot is struggling, you know the housing market is in rough shape.

The stock fell 3% faster than you can say "honey-do list." With mortgage rates still above 6%, nobody's buying houses, and if they're not buying homes, they're DEFINITELY not purchasing new countertops.

Right before Nvidia's earnings, a bunch of analysts came out swinging, defending AI valuations like they were their firstborn children. "It's not a bubble!" they cried. "Look at all the data centers! Look at the spending! Look at the—"

And then Nvidia reported AMAZING numbers... and the stock still fell.

Now everyone's back to arguing whether AI spending can keep up this pace or if we're all funding the world's most expensive tech party that's gonna end with someone calling an Uber at 3 AM, going, "Why did we spend so much?!"

South Korea's biggest companies, Samsung, Hyundai, SK, and LG—looked at each other and said, "You know what? Let's bet $550 BILLION on ourselves." That's BILLION with a B.

They're dumping money into AI, semiconductors, clean energy, basically everything except K-pop (which would've been a solid investment too, honestly). Samsung alone pledged over $309 billion.

This is basically South Korea planting their flag and saying, "We're staying in the tech game, and we're BRINGING IT." It's a global tech arms race, and they just showed up in a tank.

Target can't catch a break. They posted their TENTH quarter out of the last twelve with flat or NEGATIVE sales. Comparable sales dropped 2.7%—worse than expected—and while they beat earnings estimates (yay?), revenue missed (boo).

The new CEO to be announced, they're spending an extra BILLION dollars next year to fix stores, update merchandise, and basically try not to look like the retail version of a participation trophy.

Here's the problem: while Walmart's killing it as the king of value, Target's stuck in the middle, like the middle child nobody remembers. Consumers are either going full budget mode or complete luxury—there's no middle ground anymore.

Okay, this is where it gets FUN. At the start of the week, odds of a Fed rate cut in December were like 22-41%, basically, "Eh, probably not gonna happen."

By week's end, two Fed officials—Waller and Williams—started hinting they might ACTUALLY cut rates, and suddenly the odds jumped to 70%!

Markets were whipsawing harder than a teenager's mood swings. One minute everyone's bearish, next minute they're bullish, then back to "I DON'T KNOW ANYMORE!"

It's like the Fed is playing poker, and nobody can tell if they're bluffing or holding pocket aces.

The retail earnings basically split America into two categories: "I'm doing fine" and "I'm one overdraft fee away from eating ramen for a month."

Walmart? CRUSHING IT—sales up 4.5%, transactions up. But their CFO's warning that lower-income folks are hurting BAD.

Target? Sales DOWN 2.7%, missing estimates, and looking worried.

Home Depot? Same story—people with money are still renovating, but everyone else is Googling "DIY home repair" instead of shopping.

The message is clear: if you've got money, you're spending it. If you don't? You're not. And the gap between those two groups is getting WIDER.

Expect light trading and more questions than answers. We get Industrial Production data at 9:15 AM—basically "how are the factories doing?"—and ECB President Lagarde speaks at 9:50 AM, which could move European markets if she says anything spicy.

THIS is where it gets interesting. We get Retail Sales numbers at 8:30 AM—the market's gonna be watching like a hawk to see if consumers actually showed up to spend or if everyone's just window shopping.

Then, at 9:00 AM, we get home price data, which, honestly, we already know is gonna be "still expensive, still not moving."

PLUS, we get earnings from Best Buy, which will tell us if people are actually buying TVs for the holidays or just putting them on their Amazon wish lists and hoping.

The BIG number drops at 8:30 AM: Third-quarter GDP. This tells us if the economy actually grew or if we're all running in place like a hamster wheel.

Then Deere (the tractor company) reports earnings, and honestly, if FARMERS are struggling, we ALL should be worried. Dell reports too, which will tell us if companies are still throwing money at AI servers or if they're tapping the brakes.

Oh, and the Fed releases its Beige Book at 2 PM—which is basically "here's what we're hearing from around the country" in report form.

Markets closed. America eats. Bank of Korea might announce something, but good luck finding anyone paying attention.

Markets close at 1 PM—which is WILD because that's when Black Friday shopping actually peaks. Everyone's gonna be watching foot traffic, online sales, and whether consumers are actually opening their wallets or just their eyes to look at deals.

It's gonna be a weird day of light trading and heavy speculation.

For those who don't know, Polymarket is basically where people bet real money on economic outcomes. Here's what the crowd thinks:

Will there be a recession in 2025? Only 5% chance—people are pretty confident we'll dodge that bullet.

November unemployment rate? 37% chance it hits 4.6% or higher. That's... not great, folks.

GDP growth for 2025? 67% chance we land in the 2.0-2.5% range—solid but not spectacular, like a B+ on your report card.

Fed rate cut in December? NOW at 70% odds after being at 30% earlier this week. This thing's bouncing more than a basketball.

Gold closed around $4,065 per ounce—basically flat for the week after testing $4,080 and pulling back. It's stuck between "the dollar's strong" (bad for gold) and "the world's on fire" (good for gold). With the Fed, probably who knows, cutting rates, gold's just chilling, waiting to see what happens next. Still up about 50% year-over-year, though, so gold bugs are eating well.

The housing market is STUCK. Like, "forgot the password to your account and locked yourself out" stuck. Mortgage rates are still above 6%, nobody's buying, nobody's selling, and Home Depot's CEO is basically crying into his tool belt about it.

Home turnover is at its LOWEST since the 1990s—only 28 out of every 1,000 homes changed hands from January to September. That's like a high school dance where everyone's standing against the wall, too scared to ask someone to dance.

Existing homeowners are "locked in" to their low 2-3% mortgages from the pandemic era and refusing to move because who wants to trade a 2.5% rate for a 6.24% rate? That's financial self-harm.

Grab yourself a nice Bordeaux and a slice of humble pie this week—because whether you were betting on AI or betting against the consumer, the market served EVERYONE a reality check.

As you digest your turkey and strategize your Black Friday attack plan, remember: sometimes the smartest move is to sit on the sidelines, avoid the chaos, and wait for better prices. It's like waiting for Black Friday TV deals instead of buying on November 1st—patience pays off.

Cheers to that.

Look, last week proved something important: even when companies absolutely CRUSH earnings, the market can still find a reason to throw a tantrum. Nvidia beat by a MILE, and Wall Street was still grumpy. Walmart posted solid numbers but reminded us that half the country is struggling. And Bitcoin? Well, Bitcoin did what Bitcoin does best—make everyone question their life choices.

Heading into this shortened trading week, here's where we're at: fundamentals are decent, sentiment is shaky, and the Fed is playing "will they, won't they" with rate cuts like a bad rom-com.

But HEY, holiday shopping season is here, most earnings held up okay, and the economy hasn't completely fallen off a cliff (yet). So take a deep breath, enjoy that turkey, spend time with family (even the relatives who ask about your stock picks), and remember: the market's always there waiting for you on the other side of the cranberry sauce.

Here's to a profitable week, a smooth holiday season, and HOPEFULLY fewer questions and more answers by the time we roll into 2026. Stay sharp, stay diversified, and when in doubt, there's always that Bordeaux.