The Monday Report – 17 November 2025

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The Nasdaq and S&P500 stablised on Friday but investors aren't out of the woods yet with Nvidia due to report on November 19, and a swag of US data on the way with the US government reopening.

After last week's decline for the ASX200, futures are pointing to another soft start on Monday.

Good Morning,

The ASX200 finished 135 points (-1.54%) lower last week at 8634, marking its lowest weekly close in over four months.  

A -10.58% fall in index heavyweight CommBank ((CBA)) put pressure on the index with further selling generated from the strong October labour market report that lowered expectations for future RBA rate cuts. 

The worst-performing sectors last week were Info Tech down -9.36%, Financials down -4.89%, Real Estate off -2.58%, and Telco down -2.45%.

In contrast, Materials rose 3.77%, Energy up 1.91%, Utilities up 1.16%, and Industrials, off -0.17% outperformed the broader market.

What happened on Friday, NAB Markets Today Research

The S&P500 rebounded from a loss of -1.4% Friday to close less than -0.1% lower on Friday, to be up less than 0.1% over the week.

US yields were 2-4bp higher across the curve as Regional Fed Presidents continued to sound circumspect about the case for a December cut. Gilts sharply underperformed on UK budget headlines.

Trade headlines were in the news, with Trump removing tariffs on dozens of food products, including beef, coffee and bananas, and confirmation of a deal with Switzerland.

The Swiss deal was more of the same, tariffs reduced to 15% in exchange for a commitment to invest in the US. The removal of tariffs on many food products though were a further small shift away from maximalist tariff policy. A broader shift in focus towards cost of living is headlined by a range of media outlets. Trump again mentioned the prospect of tariff dividend payments on Friday.

When asked about the proposal for US$2000 payments, Treasury Secretary Bessent, said ‘we will see,’ and noted it would need a congressional vote. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated the checks could cost US$600bn, compared to estimates of around US$300bn for calendar 2025 tariff revenue.

Beef is Australia’s largest export to the US, but the tariffs haven’t dampened demand, with beef exports to the US higher over the past year, in part because Australia’s 10% tariff was equal to or lower than major competitors. A White House official told Bloomberg Friday’s changes only impact the reciprocal tariff rates, meaning that agricultural products from Brazil will still face that additional 40% rate.

Fed presidents continue to be skeptical of the case for a December cut. Logan, a non-voter, said modestly restrictive settings are appropriate unless there is convincing evidence of inflation coming down faster or a more than gradual cooling in the labour market, “It does not seem like a labor market to me for me to see that it would be appropriate for further preemptive insurance”.

Kansas’s Schmid said additional interest-rate cuts could do more to ingrain higher inflation than shore up the labor market, though that wasn’t new news and is in line with his justification for dissenting in favour of a hold in October.

There are now -11bp priced for the December 10 meeting. September Payrolls is released Thursday, and regardless of any gaps in the October data, the November numbers should be available before the December meeting.

In rates markets across the week, the Australian 10yr underperformed alongside continued RBA repricing. There are now -13bp of easing priced by mid 2026, from -19bp a week ago.

UK gilts though were the clear underperformer on Friday. 10yr gilt yields were 14bp higher and 30yr yields rose 16bp. The volatility was prompted by a series of headlines Friday about UK budget plans ahead of the Autumn budget on 26 November.

First, government borrowing costs jumped the most since July, and the pound slumped, while the FTSE100 stock index was headed for its worst day since April after overnight Reports that Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves was dropping plans to raise income tax at the budget saw yields higher and the pound lower, before the moves were pared after Bloomberg reported that improved UK forecasts were behind the decision.

Yields resumed their move higher on reports Reeves was considering extending the freeze on income-tax thresholds instead of lowering them.

Elsewhere on Friday, China activity data was on the soft side. Industrial production was up just 4.9% y/y from 6.5% and against expectation for 5.5%. External demand weighed, with export values and industrial sales for export both declining over the year.

Fixed asset investment was down -1.7% tear-to-date,  y/y, pointing to an accelerating slump. Retail sales were near expectation, at 2.9% y/y from 3.0% and 2.8% expected as the policy supported consumer durables spending boost earlier in the year wanes.

Holiday timing may make the October Industrial production numbers look worse than the underlying trend, but regardless the data look to be consistent with slower growth momentum into Q4.

Chris Weston, Pepperstone: Welcome bank payrolls, we’ve missed you

The key event risks this week seem split between navigating US company earnings and the September US non-farm payrolls (NFP) report.

On balance, earnings from major US retailers and Nvidia will likely set the tone for the S&P500 and Nasdaq100.

While NFP is always a headline act, market sensitivity to this print should feasibly be set lower, with traders instead placing far greater weight on the November NFP release (5 Dec) and also the Nov CPI report (10 Dec), with both key data points landing just before the December FOMC meeting, in what will be a period littered with major event risk and possibly reduced liquidity in the order books. 

Christmas, it seems, may have to be put on ice this year, as the data deluge seen through December suggests trading will be pushed right until the New Year….. 

Options pricing implies a minus/plus 6.5% move in Nvidia on the day of reporting (November 19).

Nvidia’s Q3 2026 earnings and its Q4 guidance are viewed as this week’s main volatility event; justifying that call we see that the options pricing implies a ±6.5% move on the day of reporting and setting the platform for an implied ±1.1% move in the S&P500. 

With the bar to please set a lofty level once more, Nvidia will likely need to post Q3 revenue around US$56 billion and guide toward US$61.5–US$62 billion for Q4, with gross margins near 74% (Q3) and 74.7% (Q4) to satisfy high buy-side expectations.

CEO Jensen Huang is expected to deliver a strong outlook, which is what we’ve become conditioned to see. Investors will look for updates on Nvidia’s target of an additional 14 million GPUs (as outlined at GTC for CY25/26) and progress on its US$100 billion investment in OpenAI.

The reaction to Nvidia’s results could ripple through the broader AI and semiconductor space. However, traders are also keeping a close eye on the credit markets, particularly firms with comparatively elevated net debt-to-cash flow and net debt-to-EBITDA ratios that continue issuing debt (and are expected to accelerate this in 2026) to fund capacity build outs.

Labour’s budget U-turn is becoming a DM bond issue 

The UK gilt market remains a major focus. UK 10-year yields rose 14 bps week-on-week, and 30-year yields gained 15 bps. Although still about 35 bps below recent highs, it’s the rate of change in yield that matters more than the absolute level.

The Labour government’s budget U-turn last week has further undermined Chancellor Reeves’ credibility, as markets perceive yet another developed-market (DM) government refraining from heading down that pot-holed road of deficit-reduction when growth would be squarely put at risk.

GBP interest-rate swaps have modestly reduced the implied probability of a BoE rate cut on 18 December, now pricing a 79% chance of a -25 bp reduction.

Importantly, given cross-market linkages, the sell-off in UK gilts should not be viewed as a UK-specific issue — higher gilt yields tend to drive higher US Treasury and other developed-market bond yields, with rising bond volatility spilling into equities and other risk assets.

Quietly Falling Behind the Curve, Stephen Innes, SPI Asset Management extract

The tape ended the week like a tired prize fighter leaning on the ropes, not knocked out, just waiting for the bell. A 0.1% lift in the S&P 500 isn’t a rally so much as a heartbeat, with health care and energy keeping the pulse alive while tech tiptoed into next week’s Nvidia verdict (November 19 earnings report).

But the real story isn’t in the daily prints, it’s in what happens now that Washington’s lights flicker back on and the data fire hose is about to explode after 43 days of silence.

For the first time since early October, markets have something resembling a macro compass again. And the question in every strategist’s mind: are we about to discover the Fed is already behind the curve?

The shutdown’s end resets the macro game board. The backlog will get cleared, but the distortion will be enormous. We may never get an October unemployment rate. We may never get the October CPI print. Even when the delayed reports do drop, they’ll be riddled with noise, false signals, oversized revisions, data ghosts haunting an already skittish market.

Meanwhile, Powell will try to squint through the fog, dismissing Q4 weakness as shutdown flotsam and betting on a Q1 bounce. That’s fine in theory but it also carries the risk of a central bank lulled into complacency just as the real economy starts shifting beneath its feet.

Because out there in the weeds, things aren’t quite lining up.

The NFIB survey has rolled over again, small-business earnings collapsing from to -25 from -16 in a single month, the mood souring back to tariff-shock levels.

Consumer sentiment is even more unnerving: Michigan’s current conditions index has never been this low, not even during the worst of the post-GFC funk. And the public’s one-year unemployment outlook has crashed beneath its Great Recession floor.

You don’t need released data to know something under the surface is tightening.

Yet the macro paradox of 2025 is that even as survey sentiment wilts, the hard-activity trackers still look pretty sturdy. The Bloomberg Surprise Index is sitting at plus-0.25. The NY Fed’s GDP tracker is still pointing to a 2.1% Q4 print that belongs to a much rosier reality.

In other words: the models say the plane is cruising; the passengers say they smell smoke.

And the Fed? They’re in a 50-50 coin-flip for December. The market is no longer pricing a clean easing glide path into 2026.

A few hawkish nudges from FOMC speakers this week were enough to yank forward-rate expectations into something much knottier—and for an equity market priced like a Fabergé egg at 23 times forward earnings, these subtle shifts matter.

Because here’s the uncomfortable truth: the most persuasive bull case for equities right now is simply that Fed tightening isn’t at the door. Historically, bull markets die when Powell’s predecessors slam on the brakes:

-Late ’90s – Fed hikes 150 bps – dot-com flameout

-2007 – Fed hikes 425 bps – credit system buckles

-2022 – Fed hikes 500 bps – pandemic bubble shot down

Every major bull market top has had the Fed’s fingerprints on the murder weapon.

Today? They’re easing. They’re biased to ease more. A dovish FOMC in 2026 could even out-ease the data, intentionally or otherwise.

In theory, this is the stuff bull markets feed on—liquidity lubrication, valuation drift, an ever-wider runway for big-cap narratives.

But the bears aren’t hallucinating either.

The S&P at 23 times forward earnings. One standard deviation richer than long-run norms. A concentration so extreme the top-10 names now are the market—over 40% of the index.

And much of that premium is built atop the AI capex supe rcycle, where parts of the narrative are beginning to wobble under their own weight. Expensive can become very expensive—a lesson learned many times—but gravity always returns eventually.

So the week ahead is really about the market trying to price the void: the absence of data, the uncertainty around the Fed reaction function, the re-emergence of volatility as macro fuel pours back into the system.

We are stepping out of a blackout and into a blizzard. When the fog lifts, the economy could look sturdier… or weaker… or simply different enough that the Fed regrets not tightening or easing sooner.

And in that gap—between what’s printed and what’s real—is where big macro swings live.

Let’s just hope, as the backlog clears and the true contours of Q4 come into focus, that the Fed isn’t once again forced to chase the curve rather than shape it.

Corporate news in Australia

-KKR is in early discussions to sell Colonial First State after finishing a strategic review.

-Airtasker ((ART)) is raising $10m to fund growth strategies in the UK and US.

-Zeus Street Greek is aiming for $120m plus in revenue and tripling its stores to 150 by 2030.

-Unico Silver ((USL)) us looking to raise $40m to fund its projects.

-Saudi Arabia is looking at investing in Woodside Energy’s ((WDS)) Louisiana LNG project.

-Law firm Corrs, Chambers Westgarth has warned company boards to prepare for more shareholder activism.

-Westpac Bank ((WBC)) has ceased rural bank closures until 2030.

-Lendlease Group ((LLC)) is selling down the remaining assets in ones of its key retail property funds ($2.8bn) after winning the battle with Hostplus.

On the calendar today:

-JP 3Q GDP (1st Prelim)

-US Aug Construction Spend

-AUCKLAND INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT LIMITED ((AIA)) Oct Traffic Update

-ENDEAVOUR GROUP LIMITED ((EDV)) AGM

-ELDERS LIMITED ((ELD)) FY25 Result/Call

-FLEETPARTNERS GROUP LIMITED ((FPR)) FY25 Result/Investor Call

-GALAN LITHIUM LIMITED ((GLN)) AGM

-GENETIC SIGNATURES LIMITED ((GSS)) AGM

-MCMILLAN SHAKESPEARE LIMITED ((MMS)) AGM

-MACQUARIE GROUP LIMITED ((MQG)) ex-div 280c (35%)

-NEW HOPE CORPORATION LIMITED ((NHC)) 1Q26 Update/Call

-PEEL MINING LIMITED ((PEX)) AGM

-PLATO INCOME MAXIMISER LIMITED ((PL8)) ex-div 0.55c (100%)

-SOUTHERN CROSS GOLD CONSOLIDATED LIMITED CHEES DEPOSITORY INTEREST REPR 1 ((SX2)) AGM

FNArena’s four-weekly calendar: https://fnarena.com/index.php/financial-news/calendar/

The Australian share market over the past thirty days…

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