December always feels like the month when the market decides whether it wants to end the year with a bang or a whimper. This morning, as the coffee brews and the pre-market numbers start flickering across screens, there’s a strange mix of relief, worry, and outright surprise waiting for anyone who follows the tape. Let me walk you through the five stories that actually matter today – not the noise, but the stuff that could move your money.
A Wild Start to the Final Month of 2025
I’ve been doing this long enough to know that December rarely plays nice. It can give you a Santa Claus rally one week and take it all back the next. Right now the scoreboard shows the Dow and S&P 500 riding seven straight winning months – pretty remarkable in any environment – but tech? Tech just coughed up its first negative month since spring. That divergence alone is worth paying attention to.
1. Eli Lilly Just Made Weight-Loss Drugs (Slightly) Less Insane to Buy
Let’s start with the headline that had half of America refreshing pharmacy websites at 6 a.m. sharp. The pharmaceutical giant announced it’s cutting the cash price of single-dose vials of Zepbound – you know, the drug everyone and their cousin has been trying to get their hands on – to between $299 and $449 per month on its direct-to-consumer platform.
That’s down from the previous $349–$549 range. Still not cheap, mind you, but when the list price without insurance can push past $1,300, this feels like a genuine olive branch to patients paying out of pocket.
In my view, this isn’t pure charity. Pressure has been building for months – from patients, from lawmakers, and yes, from a certain incoming administration that made drug pricing a campaign cornerstone. The timing, right after holiday feasts and right before New Year’s resolution season, is almost too perfect. Expect shares to pop at the open, but watch the volume. If institutions use the gap-up as a selling opportunity, the rally could fizzle fast.
2. The Nasdaq’s November Hangover Is Real
While the Dow managed to claw its way higher last week, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite finished November down roughly 1.5%. That snaps a seven-month winning streak and reminds everyone that trees don’t actually grow to the sky.
The culprit? Classic late-cycle worries about artificial intelligence spending. Everyone loves the story until they start adding up the electricity bills for all those data centers. When even the most ardent bulls begin asking whether we’re in the middle of another capex arms race with no immediate payoff, you get rotation – and you get pain in some of last year’s darlings.
Palantir, for example, dropped around 16% in November – its worst month in over two years. That’s the kind of move that makes growth investors reconsider their life choices. Meanwhile, silver quietly surged to all-time highs and posted its longest winning streak since the early 80s. Funny how the “barbarous relic” crowd sometimes gets the last laugh.
Investors currently have unusually low equity exposure heading into December, which historically sets the stage for upside surprises if sentiment turns.
Mike Santoli, senior markets commentator
I think he’s onto something. Cash on the sidelines plus seasonal tailwinds could make for a spicy year-end rally – provided we don’t get ugly inflation prints or geopolitical shocks.
3. Hollywood Just Had One of Its Best Thanksgiving Weekends Ever
Sometimes the best market signal isn’t a Fed speaker or an earnings report – it’s how many people showed up to watch animated animals solve crimes. Preliminary numbers suggest this year’s five-day Thanksgiving box office hauled in around $294 million domestically, putting 2025 on track for the third- or fourth-best Thanksgiving performance ever.
Disney’s Zootopia 2 led the pack with an estimated $156 million, proving that family audiences will still brave the multiplex if you give them something genuinely fun. IMAX raked in a record $40.8 million globally over the weekend – 70% higher than last year’s previous high. Translation: consumers aren’t completely broke yet.
For investors, that’s meaningful. Consumer discretionary stocks have been under pressure, but strong entertainment spending tends to correlate with broader willingness to open wallets. Keep an eye on cinema chains and related names today; some quiet winners could emerge.
4. Airbus Shares Are Taking a Beating in Europe
Across the Atlantic, shares of the European planemaker are down sharply after reports of manufacturing quality issues affecting dozens of A320-family jets. Apparently certain fuselage panels aren’t quite up to spec, causing delivery delays for some customers.
Important clarification: no safety concerns for aircraft already flying, just headaches for airlines waiting on new planes. Still, in an industry where Boeing has spent years in the penalty box, any whiff of production trouble at Airbus gets magnified.
Add in a separate software glitch that grounded thousands of A320s over the holiday weekend (now resolved), and you’ve got a perfect recipe for a nasty open in Paris. Supply-chain fragility remains the Achilles heel of global manufacturing – something defense and aerospace investors know all too well.
5. Even Gravestone Makers Are Feeling Tariff Pain
Yes, you read that right. Family-owned monument companies – the folks who carve “Beloved Father” into granite – are getting squeezed between rising cremation rates and higher import tariffs on stone.
Turns out certain colors and qualities of granite simply aren’t economically viable to quarry in the U.S., so these small businesses still import despite the levies. One owner summed it up with gallows humor: “God gave different parts of the world different yummies.”
It’s a tiny niche, sure, but it’s also a reminder that tariffs rarely land neatly on big corporations alone. They ripple through every corner of the economy, sometimes in ways policymakers never bothered to model.
What I’m Watching This Week
- Tuesday: CrowdStrike, Okta earnings – can cybersecurity keep defying gravity?
- Wednesday Salesforce after the bell – the last big SaaS name to report
- Friday September PCE inflation data – the Fed’s preferred gauge
Between now and then, Bitcoin and Ethereum are both sliding this morning, dragging the entire crypto complex lower. If $90k fails to hold for BTC, we could see a quick flush toward $85k before buyers step in.
Bottom line? December is here, volatility is back on the menu, and the market is trying to figure out whether 2025 ends with champagne or Alka-Seltzer. My bias leans toward upside surprises – cash levels are low, sentiment is skeptical, and the macro backdrop remains reasonably supportive. But as always, always, respect the tape.
Stay nimble out there.
