S&P 500 closed Thursday 12/11 at 6901, up 0.2% to an ATH # unemployment claims jump #

[progree]

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Last edited Thu Dec 11, 2025, 07:32 PM - Edit history (220)

In the future I will only be doing these twice a week: Tuesday and Friday, unless it's really interesting.

10 Year TREASURY YIELD 4.14% on 12/11, -0.02 (It local-bottomed out at 3.95% 10/22/25, its lowest point since April.)
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5ETNX/

Bitcoin: (at 7:01 PM ET 12/11 ) 92.516, down about $100 from last Tuesday's posting. It has wiped out all its gains for 2025 -- it ended 2024 at $93,429. It's in bear market territory, down more than 20% from it's $126,000+ all-time high in October (actually down 26% from that level)

Market news of the day: https://finance.yahoo.com/

How to find the latest Yahoo Finance "stock market today" report if it's not at the finance.yahoo page: click on
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22stock+market+today%22+site%3Afinance.yahoo.com&oq=%22stock+market+today%22+site%3Afinance.yahoo.com

If the link doesn't work for you,
Google: "stock market today" site:finance.yahoo.com

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live/stock-market-today-dow-jumps-650-points-to-post-record-sp-500-climbs-above-6900-for-first-time-210051184.html

Stock market today: Dow jumps 650 points to post record, S&P 500 climbs above 6,900 for first time, Yahoo Finance, 12/11/25

The Dow and S&P 500 notched new records on Thursday as US stocks mostly rose, with tech stocks under more pressure after Oracle (ORCL) earnings revived AI overspending worries.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI), gained around 1.3%, or nearly 650 points, to set a new all-time high, even as the likes of component Nvidia (NVDA) pulled back. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) also notched a fresh record close at 6,900, adding to Wednesday's rally that followed the Federal Reserve’s latest interest rate cut. The Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) slid by 0.3%.

Stocks largely continued on Wednesday's rally despite a nearly 11% slide from Oracle (ORCL). The company's earnings late Wednesday brought AI spending fears back with a vengeance, after the software giant missed on cloud sales and hiked its already aggressive data center spending by $15 billion.

But Wall Street's mostly upbeat mood continued after a split Fed voted to lower rates for the third time this year. Policymakers signaled a more gradual path of easing in the months ahead, but Chair Jerome Powell hinted that a rate hike would be off the table for January, while talking up the US economy's strength. (("hike" underlined by progree))

Powell said the Fed is "well positioned to wait and see" how economic conditions evolve, adding that tariffs imposed under President Trump have contributed to inflation pressures that the central bank sees as a "one-time" increase. ((he also added the very important caveat: "Our job is to make sure that is the case" -progree))

That put the spotlight on a weekly update on jobless claims on Thursday, which came in significantly higher than expected at 236,000. That was the biggest jump since 2020, after dipping to a three-year low in the Thanksgiving week. ((DU LBN thread: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143580644 -progree)).

The next signal on the labor market will come from the delayed November jobs report, set for release next Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the US trade deficit unexpectedly narrowed to its smallest in over five years as exports surged, potentially reflecting a boost to the wider economy in the third quarter.

Also, earnings reports continue with Broadcom (AVGO), Costco (COST), and Lululemon (LULU) all set to release results.

Scroll down to see earlier in the day reports

Nothing below has been updated -- it is the same way it was after the Tuesday December 9 close. Except the graphs auto-update as always





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Coming up, reports (I'm also keeping the Dec 1 - Dec 5 ones for now)
https://www.marketwatch.com/economy-politics/calendar

The government reports are all seasonally adjusted, so please don't post comments about how the numbers look good (or not as bad as expected) only because of Christmas season hires - seasonal factors like that have been adjusted for

Monday Dec 1 - S&P PMI and ISM's manufacturing reports (non-govt) - ICYMI - headlines I saw didn't look all that good

Wednesday Dec 3 - ADP employment, (non-govt) -- Private payrolls dropped 32,000 positions last month https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143576215
. . . S&P PMI and ISM's service reports (non-govt) -

Friday Dec 5 - PCE inflation -- the Fed's favorite inflation gauge, which I think sucks because it fully includes substitution effects, e.g. if a lot of consumers switch from soaring priced beef to turkey necks, this causes meat prices to rise less steeply or even fall (govt: the Commerce Dept) -- https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143577593
September PCE: +0.3%, 12 months: 2.8% (was 2.7%) ##CORE PCE: +0.2%, 12 months: 2.8% (was 2.9%);
(The "was" is what was reported in August). Some media are making a huge huge deal about a slight 0.1% downturn in the core YOY PCE inflation rate, I don't know why, but it's standard for the media to make a big thing out of a very minor change.
. . . Personal spending and personal income (govt: the Commerce Dept)
. . . Consumer sentiment (non-govt)
https://www.sca.isr.umich.edu/

((Notice how it was a fly-speck tickup in the month-over-month number while the 3-month average actually moved down. This is very common in media reporting, making an enormous hoohah about the teeniest little change -progree))

TUE December 9:

* NFIB (National Federation of Independent Businesses) Optimism index, (non-govt) - I haven't looked at this yet, except that a headline said it improved. Here is a link: https://www.nfib.com/news/press-release/new-nfib-survey-small-business-optimism-edges-up-in-november/

* JOLTS (Jobs Opening and Labor Turnover Survey) (govt) - An unexpected tick up in job openings (albeit very tiny tick up), but layoffs jumped -- https://finance.yahoo.com/news/job-openings-inched-up-in-october-but-labor-market-worries-persist-152702311.html
DU thread: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143579632

WED December 10:

* Employment Cost Index for Q3 (govt)

* FOMC Interest rate decision at 2 pm ET - very widely expected to be a quarter point rate cut

THUR DECEMBER 11:

* Weekly unemployment insurance claims (govt)

* Trade deficit (govt)

Revised release dates for Bureau of Labor Statistics reports: https://www.bls.gov/bls/2025-lapse-revised-release-dates.htm

The October's CPI report has been cancelled and the November CPI won't be released prior to the Fed's December 10 rate-setting meeting. The November report was originally scheduled for 830 AM ET Dec 10, - several hours before the Fed's decision.

On November 21 we learned that they won't see the November jobs report until days after their meeting. And there won't be an October jobs report. The headline non-farm payrolls part for October will be presented with the November data, but again the November report won't come out until days after their meeting. The October unemployment rate will never be presented

=============================================
The S&P 500 closed Tuesday December 9 at 6841, down 0.1% for the day,
and up 18.3% from the 5783 election day closing level,
and up 14.1% from the inauguration eve closing level,
and up 16.3% year-to-date (since the December 31 close)

and down 0.7% from its October 28 all-time-high

S&P 500
# Election day close (11/5/24) 5783
# Last close before inauguration day: (1/17/25): 5997
# 2024 year-end close (12/31/24): 5882
# Trump II era low point (going all the way back to election day Nov5): 4983 on April 8
# October 28 all-time-high: 6890.90

# Several market indexes: https://finance.yahoo.com/
# S&P 500: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EGSPC/
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EGSPC/history/

Bitcoin
Bitcoin ended 2024 at $93,429. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/BTC-USD/
Bitcoin's all-time interday high: 126,198 on Oct. 6
Bitcoin's all-time closing high: 124,753 on Oct 6.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/BTC-USD/history/

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I'm not a fan of the DOW as it is a cherry-picked collection of just 30 stocks that are price-weighted, which is silly. It's as asinine as judging consumer price inflation by picking 30 blue chip consumer items, and weighting them according to their prices. But since there is an automatically updating embedded graphic, here it is. It takes several, like 6 hours, after the close for it to update, like about 10 PM EDT.
(If it still isn't updated, try right-clicking on it and opening in a new tab. #OR# click on https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EDJI/ ).

The Dow closed Monday at 47,739, and it closed Tuesday at 47,560, a drop of 0.4% (179 points) for the day

https://finance.yahoo.com/
DOW: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EDJI/
. . . . . . https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EDJI/history/

DOW
# Election day close (11/5/24) 42,222
# Last close before inauguration day: (1/17/25): 43,488
# 2024 year-end close (12/31/24): 42,544

DJIA means Dow Jones Industrials Average. It takes about 6 hours after the close to update, so check it after 10 PM EDT. Sometimes it takes a couple days (sigh)



I don't have an embeddable graph for the S&P 500, unfortunately, but to see its graph, click on https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EGSPC/

While I'm at it, I might as well show Oil and the Dollar:

Crude Oil


US Dollar Index (DX-Y.NYB)


If you see a tiny graphics square above and no graph, right click on the square and choose "load image". There should be a total of 3 graphs. And remember that it typically takes about 6 hours after the close before these graphs update.
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