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Stocks were choppy in Friday’s abbreviated session, though the three main indexes extended their daily win streaks to five on Black Friday. Today’s gains came even as futures and options trading were temporarily halted ahead of the open due to a cooling issue at a Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) data center.
“‘Better late than never’ may turn out to be the stock market’s story for November,” says Chris Larkin, managing director of Trading and Investing at E*TRADE from Morgan Stanley. “While it might be too soon to say we’ve seen the last of tech volatility, over the past [five] trading days, the S&P 500 erased nearly all of its November pullback, rallying from a nearly 10-week low to roughly 1% below its record close.”
Today, the S&P 500 rose 0.5% to 6,849, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.6% to 47,716 and the Nasdaq Composite finished 0.7% higher at 23,365.
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For all of November, the S&P 500 closed flat, the Dow gained 0.3% and the Nasdaq shed 1.7%. These are pretty impressive returns considering the three indexes were staring at month-to-date losses ranging between 3.8% and 6.9% one week ago.
Larkin says that the market needs to prove it can sustain its momentum, but that the selling seen earlier this month “looks like it could be more of a short-term AI-selling climax than a sign of heightened bearishness.”
History is certainly working in the bulls’ favor. According to Yardeni Research, December has been one of the best months for stocks, with the S&P 500 averaging a 1.3% gain since 1928. And the index has finished the month in positive territory 70 times over that same time frame.
Analyst sees 65% upside for red-hot CleanSpark
In single-stock news, CleanSpark (CLSK) surged 12.3%, extending its post-earnings surge. Earlier this week, the bitcoin miner and data center developer reported “transformative” fiscal 2025 results that showed a more than 100% year-over-year rise in revenue.
“We are evolving into a comprehensive compute platform that is prepared to optimize value from both AI and bitcoin workloads,” said Matt Schultz, Chairman and CEO of CleanSpark. “Our deep expertise in power procurement, infrastructure development, and efficient scaling gives us a unique advantage in meeting surging global demand for compute.”
CLSK ended Friday with a weekly gain of 55% and Needham analyst John Todaro thinks the red-hot crypto stock can climb even higher. The analyst reiterated his Buy rating and raised his price target to $25 from $23 – representing implied upside of 65% to today’s close – as CleanSpark “transitions more toward high-performance computing from bitcoin mining.”
Intel gains on Apple buzz
Intel (INTC) was another notable gainer in Friday’s shortened session, surging 10.3% after TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo tweeted that the chipmaker is expected to start shipping Apple (AAPL, +0.5%) low-end M processors as early as 2027.
“There have long been market rumors that Intel could become an advanced-node foundry supplier to Apple, but visibility around this had remained low,” the Apple supply chain analyst posted. “My latest industry surveys, however, indicate that visibility on Intel becoming an advanced-node supplier to Apple has recently improved significantly.”
The former Dow Jones stock has more than doubled since the start of the year thanks to big investments from the U.S. government and Nvidia (NVDA, -1.8%). But analysts are still sitting on the sidelines.
Of the 45 analysts following INTC who are tracked by S&P Global Market Intelligence, four say it’s a Buy or Strong Buy, 24 have it at Hold, and seven rate it a Sell or Strong Sell. This works out to a consensus Hold recommendation.
Wedbush analyst Matt Bryson is one of those with a Neutral (Hold) rating on Intel.
“We see recent investment announcements as the impetus for much of the valuation disconnect, with these ties having seemingly increased optimism around INTC’s opportunities,” he says. “And, while we do believe these deals bolster INTC’s balance sheet, we are less certain around near or longer-term positive business ramifications that might result from this newsflow.”
