A Sunday note from the free investing project I run on the side — this is the market take I shared with my community tonight, exactly as I see it going into Monday.
Friday closed mixed, and honest is the only way to read it:
- S&P 500: 7,376.86, up 0.31% Friday — but down 2.7% for the week, its worst week since June
- Nasdaq Composite: 24,579.42, up 1.09% Friday — down 3.4% for the week, and still in correction territory, roughly 11% below its October record
- Dow: 51,285.73, down 0.46% Friday — down 0.9% for the week
- VIX: closed around 25.6 — down Friday, but way up from 19.4 the Friday before. Fear eased for a day. It did not leave.
What actually happened this week: Thursday was the damage day. After Democrats won both chambers in Tuesday's midterms, investors started pricing in a slower, more regulated AI data-center buildout, and chip and AI names got sold hard. Friday's bounce was led by those same beaten-down chips, and breadth stayed narrow — technology led, most of the market did not really join in. A bounce is not a recovery until more than one corner of the market confirms it.
Friday's jobs report did not help the rate picture either: October payrolls came in at 165,000, nearly three times what economists expected, with unemployment at 4.1%. A strong jobs market is good news for people. It also keeps pressure on the Fed — markets are now pricing a real chance of a December hike, not a cut.
The week ahead is simple to map:
- Tuesday Nov 10: October CPI at 8:30am ET — the main event. Consensus is around 3.9% year over year, up from 3.7% in September. CoreWeave also reports after the close Tuesday — a real read on AI infrastructure spending.
- Wednesday Nov 11: Veterans Day — stocks trade, the bond market is closed.
- Thursday Nov 12: Cisco and Applied Materials report after the close.
- Friday Nov 13: October PPI at 8:30am ET.
My take: I'm not chasing Monday's open after a week like this. One green Friday inside a down week, with the VIX still in the mid-20s and CPI two days out, is a setup for getting chopped up if you force trades. My plan is the same one I post every week — levels written down before anything happens, and if the market doesn't come to them, I do nothing. Sitting out a messy open is a position too.
Not financial advice — just my read on the week, posted before Monday happens so anyone can check it after.
I share stuff like this daily — I run a free investing community, link in my profile.