Thursday, November 13, 2025
Another pullback was on the menu during today’s trading day. Indexes — aside from the small-cap Russell 2000 — are still up over the past five trading days and past one month, albeit more narrowly. The Dow dropped -797 points, -1.65%, while the S&P 500 dropped a virtually equal -113 points, -1.66%. The nasdaq was gouged -536 points, -2.29%, and the Russell was -67, -2.77%.
Fed members are openly having second thoughts about further cuts to interest rates, especially with no new data on the jobs or inflation front, due to the government shutdown. In fact, some of this data might not be forthcoming at all, or at least not in time for Fed members to make an informed decision on what a neutral rate of inflation ought to be in time for the mid-December meeting.
Earlier today, Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari said he didn’t even support the cut made in late October (Kashkari didn’t have a vote), and wouldn’t be in support of any new cuts without any new economic data indicating a cut would be pertinent. This mostly goes toward weakening jobs numbers; inflation, at least in the latest CPI data, is already at +3% and threatening to go higher. St Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem, who did vote for the 25 basis-point (bps) cut last time, said we must “proceed with caution now.”
Cue the rollback of market indexes rallying on cheaper and cheaper bank loans. President Trump won’t like it, and even his best efforts so far has only gotten Stephen Miran on as Fed Governor, advocating for 50 bps cuts at both meetings he’s attended — and will no doubt advocate on December 10th. Perhaps job losses will be so great that there will be no choice but to cut rates further, but this would usher in a whole slew of new problems.
What transpired, then, was a further rotation out of the speculative AI plays, and even some not-so-speculative tech firms like Palantir PLTR, which shed -6.5% today. Gold stocks like AngloGold Ashanti AU dropped -5.2%. Instead, as we saw with the big banks yesterday, traders are rotating into value plays that haven’t gotten much love of late, such as Merck MRK, +1.6% today, and Berkshire Hathaway BRK.B, +2%.
Earnings Reports After the Close: AMAT, BZH
Chip equipment supplier Applied Materials AMAT beat estimates on both top and bottom lines in its fiscal Q4 report out after today’s closing bell. Earnings of $2.17 per share outpaced the Zacks consensus by 6 cents, while $6.80 billion in revenues surpassed the $6.70 billion analysts had been looking for. But slightly lower revenue guidance for next quarter compared with current estimates are helping the stock sell off -2.5% in late trading. AMAT is +270% over the past 5 years.
Beazer Homes BZH easily outperformed expectations in its fiscal Q4 report this afternoon on both top and bottom lines. Earnings of $1.02 per share trounced the 80 cents anticipated, while $791.9 million was way ahead of the $674.8 analysts had speculated. Yet both of these numbers still demonstrate lackluster business compared to the year-ago $1.69 per share and $806.2 million, respectively.
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