Ever have one of those trading sessions where everything seems to happen at once? That was Tuesday, November 25, 2025, right in the middle of the day. Retail names that everyone had left for dead suddenly came roaring back, a single rumor knocked billions off Nvidia’s market cap in minutes, and crypto decided it needed another sharp kick lower. Honestly, it felt less like a normal session and more like the market throwing a surprise party nobody asked for.
I’ve been watching these midday moves for years, and rarely do you see this much dispersion in a single lunchtime window. Some stocks were acting like it was Black Friday early, others like someone just turned the lights out. Let’s walk through the names that actually mattered today and, more importantly, why they moved the way they did.
Retail Just Delivered the Surprise of the Season
Let me start with the sector that honestly shocked me the most: apparel and department stores. If you’d told me yesterday that Abercrombie & Fitch and Kohl’s would be two of the hottest stocks on the tape today, I probably would have laughed. But here we are.
Abercrombie & Fitch – Yes, Really – Up 33%
The teen retailer that many investors had mentally filed under “2010s nostalgia” just posted numbers that made the street rub its eyes. Hollister, their sister brand, grew sales a ridiculous 16% while the core Abercrombie label only slipped 2%. That’s the kind of mix shift that keeps a company alive when everyone thought it was on the ropes.
Even better, management basically said Hollister should keep carrying the team through the holidays. In a season where most retailers are bracing for pain, hearing “we actually feel pretty good about the fourth quarter” is pure catnip for traders. The stock gapped, squeezed, and never looked back. Sometimes the best trades are the ones nobody saw coming.
Kohl’s Joins the Party with a 34% Rip
Not to be outdone, Kohl’s dropped a classic “beat and keep the guide” quarter. Ten cents of profit when the street was modeling a twenty-cent loss? Revenue that actually beat estimates for once? That’s the retail equivalent of finding money in an old coat pocket.
In my experience, when a struggling department store finally strings together a clean beat, the move can be violent—and today was textbook. Shorts who have been camping out in names like this all year suddenly had to run for cover. Beautiful to watch if you weren’t on the wrong side of it.
Best Buy Quietly Raises Guidance
While the apparel names stole the headlines, Best Buy did something sneaky: it told everyone that people are finally upgrading consoles, laptops, and phones again. Same-store sales guidance flipped from slightly negative to slightly positive. In retail land, that’s a big deal.
The stock only moved about 6%, which actually makes it one of the calmer winners today, but I suspect this one has legs into year-end. Replacement cycles don’t turn on a dime. Once they start, they tend to keep going for a while.
The Nvidia Wobble Nobody Saw Coming
On the flip side, Nvidia gave back 4% faster than you can say “AI darling.” The catalyst? A report—still unconfirmed—that Meta might throw billions at Alphabet’s home-grown AI chips instead of buying more Nvidia GPUs.
Look, I’m not saying Nvidia is suddenly in trouble. One rumor does not undo a multi-year dominance story. But moments like this remind us how quickly sentiment can swing when valuations are stretched and everyone owns the name. A little diversification chatter from one of the Magnificent Seven was apparently all it took to send traders reaching for the sell button.
In bull markets, the leaders can stay irrational longer than anyone expects. But they rarely shrug off real competition threats without at least a pause.
Whether Meta actually shifts spend in a meaningful way remains to be seen. What matters today is that the market decided it was worth a 4% haircut while it waits for clarity. That’s just how this movie plays sometimes.
Crypto Stocks Take Another Beating
Bitcoin keeps sliding, and anything even remotely tied to it is feeling the pain. Coinbase down 4%, MicroStrategy off 3%, Robinhood slipping—nothing dramatic on an individual basis, but the group is starting to look heavy again.
I still think the long-term crypto adoption story is intact, but short-term? Momentum has clearly rolled over. When the coins go red, the stocks follow, and right now there’s no real bid underneath.
Homebuilders Catch a Rate-Cut Breeze
Speaking of momentum flips, suddenly everyone loves homebuilders again. December rate-cut odds ticked higher, mortgage rates dipped a touch, and boom—D.R. Horton, Lennar, Pulte, and Builders FirstSource all jumped 5-7% like someone flipped a switch.
These are the same names that were getting crushed for most of the year. Funny how a few basis points can change the narrative overnight. The moves felt a little overdone to me, but trying to fade a group when the rates trade is this strong rarely ends well.
The Under-the-Radar Names That Deserve Attention
Symbotic – The 35% Robotics Monster
If you blinked, you missed Symbotic absolutely annihilating estimates. Revenue came in north of $618 million against whispers around $604 million, and the warehouse automation story keeps getting stronger. Up 35% and still not done in the after-hours. This is why I love keeping an eye on the second-tier growth names—every once in a while one of them reminds you they’re real companies with real momentum.
Zoom Keeps Proving It’s Not Dead
Remember when people said Zoom was a pandemic one-hit wonder? Another clean beat, guidance raised, stock up 13%. Turns out enterprises still love reliable video software, and the AI features they’re layering on top are starting to resonate. Some stocks just refuse to roll over.
Fluence Energy, Veralto, Keysight – The Boring Winners
Battery storage, water monitoring, electronic testing—none of these scream excitement, yet all three put up double-digit gains on strong numbers or deals. Sometimes the best money is made in the names nobody is live-tweeting about.
At the end of the day, Tuesday felt like one of those sessions that reminds you why we keep watching. Retail roared back from the grave, AI’s invincible leader showed a rare crack, crypto reminded everyone it can still hurt, and a bunch of lesser-known names stole the show.
If there’s a takeaway, it’s this: markets love to surprise. The names you wrote off yesterday can be the leaders tomorrow, and the untouchable giants can wobble when you least expect it. Stay flexible, keep your watchlist broad, and never get too comfortable with any narrative.
Because if today taught us anything, it’s that midday on November 25, 2025, the stock market still knows how to keep us on our toes.
