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December 8, 2025
Dow: 47,954
S&P: 6,870
Nasdaq: 23,578
10-YR T-Note: 4.14%
Bitcoin: 91,600
VIX: 16.22
Gold: $4,229
Crude Oil: 59.43
Don Selkin, the creator and innovator of the "Fair Value" numbers, as its Chief Market Strategist on the Newbridge platform has given CNBC and its Predecessor, these numbers every day for the over 40 years - never missing a single day, as well as given the fair value for the Nasdaq 100 futures since their introduction in 1996 and the Dow Jones stock index futures since 1997. Mr. Selkin has also been quoted in several publications including but not limited to Bloomberg News, New York Post, Reuters, and The New York Times. Mr. Selkin's Fair Value numbers are included in the U.S.
Futures Report broadcast on CNBC every day before the market
opens attributing "Newbridge Securities" as the source. In addition, NSC provides to its professionals, their clients and the public access to Don Selkin's more in depth financial market views.
The U.S. stock market rose to the edge of its all-time high on Friday, with the S&P gaining 13 to 6870, while the Dow advanced by 104 to 47,955. The Nasdaq was ahead by 73 to 23,575.
The S&P finished just 0.3% shy of its record closing level, which was set in October. It had briefly topped the mark during the day, before trimming its gain.
The modest moves capped a quiet week for investors with net gains of less than 1%. This was relief following recent weeks of sharp and scary swings.
Some retailers did better as we are entering the heart of the holiday shopping season, with ULTA gaining 13% after the it reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than expected. Another encouraging signal for the holiday shopping season came from VSCO, which delivered a milder loss for the latest quarter than analysts expected, but it also increased its forecast for sales over the full year and its stock rallied 18%.
WBD rose 6% after NFLX said it would buy Warner Bros. for $72 billion in cash and stock following its pending split from Discovery Global.
The deal for the company behind HBO Max, “Casablanca” and “Harry Potter” is not a sure thing, though. It could raise fears at the U.S. government about too much industry power for NFLX, as the stock fell by 3%. PSKY which earlier was seen as a front-runner to buy Warner Bros., sank 9.8%.
Also on the losing end was SOFI. The financial technology company fell 6.1% to $27.78 after saying it would add $1.5 billion worth of its stock into the market in order to raise cash and is selling the stock at a price of $27.50 per share.
If the S&P returns to a record, it would mark the latest time that the market has reached what seemed to be a real ng set of concerns. Recently, those concerns centered on what the Federal Reserve will do with interest rates, whether too many dollars are flowing into artificial-intelligence technology and if sharp drops for cryptocurrencies would bleed over into other markets.
The expectation among is now that the Fed will cut its main interest rate on Wednesday in hopes of supporting the slowing U.S. job market. If it does, that would be the third cut of the year. The concern is that inflation is running ahead of the Fed’s 2% target whole the labor market is showing signs of weakening even though the headline jobless rate remains contained at 4.4%. Chair Powell has therefore maintained that this is no risk-free decision.
And as I have always said, perhaps the best course of action is to wait until the rate decision is announced before taking a major position, because if one recalls last time the Fed lowered rates, the market turned from being higher to end up being lower.
Economic reports released on Friday did little to change expectations for a coming cut. One said that an underlying measure of inflation that the Fed prefers to use was at 2.8% in September, exactly as economists expected.
A separate report said U.S. consumers appear to be downgrading their expectations for inflation coming in the near future, now forecasting 4.1% inflation for the year ahead, down from their forecast of 4.5% last month, according to the University of Michigan.
That’s the lowest such forecast since January, which is important because heightened expectations for inflation can create a vicious cycle that only worsens inflation.
In the bond market, Treasury yields climbed. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.13% from 4.11% late Thursday.
In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed in Europe and Asia.
Germany’s DAX returned 0.6%, and South Korea’s Kospi jumped 1.8% for two of the world’s bigger gains.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 1.1% after data showed household spending in Japan fell 3.0% in October from a year earlier. It was the sharpest drop since January 2024. Japanese markets have been shaky recently after the Bank of Japan hinted that hikes to interest rates may be coming.
This week sees some important technology earnings with Wednesday seeing ADBE and ORCL in addition to AZO and CASY, while Thursday has AVGO and COST.
