Thanksgiving week always feels a little weird on Wall Street. Half the trading floor is already mentally carving turkey, volume dries up, and yet some of the wildest single-day moves of the year seem to happen right when everyone’s checking out. Yesterday was a perfect example – and tomorrow could be even louder.
What’s Actually Moving the Market Right Now
Let me paint the picture. While most of us were debating whether sweet potato casserole needs marshmallows (it does, fight me), a bunch of so-called “dead” mall stocks decided to remind everyone they still have a pulse. And pulse they did – hard.
Deere Steps Into the Earnings Confessional
First things first: Deere reports tomorrow morning bright and early. If you’ve been anywhere near the ag or heavy equipment space this year, you know the narrative has been rough – commodity prices rolling over, farmers pinching pennies, and construction activity cooling in certain regions.
Yet here’s the thing that quietly fascinates me: the stock is only about 7% off its May highs, and the broader S&P industrials sector has basically gone nowhere in three months. That tells you Deere has been holding up better than the headlines suggest. Maybe the precision ag tech story still has legs, or maybe the market is pricing in a softer landing for rural America than the bears want to admit.
Either way, tomorrow’s print and – more importantly – the guidance will matter. Construction and forestry have been the trouble children lately. If management sounds even mildly constructive there, we could see a quick 5-8% pop. If not? Well, there’s decent support around the 200-day moving average, but no one wants to test that over the holidays.
The Incredible Revenge of the Mall Rats
Now let’s talk about the real head-turner from Tuesday: department stores and mall brands staging the kind of comeback people have been calling dead for a decade.
Take Kohl’s. The stock closed up a mind-boggling 42.5% and punched through a fresh 52-week high. Yes, you read that right. Forty-two percent. In one session. That’s not a retail stock; that’s a meme stock on steroids wearing mom jeans.
Zoom out and the picture gets even more interesting. Over the past year:
- Five Below +78%
- Tapestry (Coach, Kate Spade) +77%
- Ralph Lauren +66%
- Dillard’s +43%
- Macy’s +37%
- Kohl’s now +22% after yesterday’s moonshot
These aren’t exactly the growth darlings of 2025. These are the names your uncle complains are “getting killed by Amazon.” Turns out Amazon might win the war but still lose a few battles along the way.
Part of this, I suspect, is simple mean reversion. A lot of these stocks got crushed during the pandemic and then ignored while everyone chased tech and AI. Valuations compressed to absurd levels – and now any whiff of “not completely dying” sends them flying.
Sometimes the best trade is the one everyone already wrote the obituary for.
There’s also the dividend angle hiding in plain sight. Mall REITs like Simon Property Group now yield close to 4.8%, Macerich over 4%, and they’re starting to feel like the bond market’s forgotten stepchildren. When 10-year Treasuries flirt with 4% again, suddenly a covered mall with foot traffic picking up doesn’t look so terrible.
Meanwhile, Online Keeps Chugging – But Quietly
Don’t get me wrong, the online trade isn’t dead. The ProShares Online Retail ETF (ONLN) is still up more than 26% over the past year, and the long online/short stores ETF (CLIX) is actually doing better at +28%.
Amazon itself? Only up 14% on the year. That feels shockingly low until you remember it ran too far, too fast in 2023 and has spent 2024 consolidating. Shopify, on the other hand, continues to quietly compound at 42% over the past twelve months and still sits 14% off highs. Its CEO appears on TV Friday morning – worth watching.
The real takeaway? The either/or narrative of “physical retail dead, online wins everything” is getting more nuanced. Turns out consumers like both – they just hated overpriced junk during high inflation. Now that pricing power is coming back in certain categories, even the old guard can surprise.
And Then There’s the Cannabis Hangover
Every party has a sad corner, and right now that corner belongs to cannabis stocks.
Someone joked that the only thing getting baked this Thanksgiving is the turkey – because the weed names are toast. Canopy Growth down over 70% in a year. Tilray trading under a dollar again. Trulieve cut nearly in half from summer highs.
Federal movement feels stalled, state-level saturation is real, and illicit supply still undercuts legal operators on price. Until scheduling actually changes or interstate commerce opens up, these remain lottery tickets dressed up as stocks.
In my experience, the cannabis trade has been one of the most painful “tomorrow” stories in the market. Tomorrow never quite arrives, and the capital raise treadmill never stops. If you’re still holding some of these from 2021… I feel for you.
So Where Does This Leave Us Heading Into Year-End?
Three quick thoughts I’m chewing on:
- Deere’s reaction tomorrow will tell us a lot about whether the industrial/ag complex is rolling over or just pausing.
- The mall stock revival is probably more rotation than renaissance, but the moves are real and the valuations still aren’t crazy in many cases.
- Cannabis remains uninvestable at scale until the regulatory picture actually changes – no matter how tempting the chart looks on a random rumor spike.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect is how quiet the leadership has been. The Magnificent Seven aren’t driving everything anymore. Boring, old-economy names are stealing the show when volume is light and attention is low. That’s often exactly when real trends start forming.
Enjoy the turkey, the family arguments, and maybe keep half an eye on the tape tomorrow morning. Sometimes the best trades hide in the sessions everyone else skips.
Happy Thanksgiving – may your portfolio be fat and your in-laws be kind.
