S&P 500 rips 1.6% higher, Nasdaq posts best day since May as Alphabet reignites AI trade

Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., Nov. 21, 2025.

Brendan McDermid | Reuters

The three leading U.S. indexes rallied on Monday.

The S&P 500 soared 1.55% to finish at 6,705.12, while the Nasdaq Composite surged 2.69% to end the day at 22,872.01. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 202.86 points, or 0.44%, to 46,448.27.

— Sean Conlon

San Francisco Federal Reserve President Mary Daly said she would support an interest rate cut at the central bank’s December meeting.

Citing risks to the labor market, the central banker told the Wall Street Journal that “I don’t feel as confident we can get ahead of it” and that the economy is “very vulnerable” to the risks of breaking out of the current no-hire no-fire paradigm.

Daly does not vote this year on the Federal Open Market Committee but does get to voice her opinion at meetings. She will vote next in 2027. Daly’s comments follow remarks Friday from New York Fed President John Williams, a permanent FOMC voter who said he sees more room to lower rates.

Williams’ comments led to a sharp repricing in the futures market, with traders now placing better than an 85% probability on a December cut, more than reversing doubts held just a week ago.

— Jeff Cox

2026 will be another strong year because of artificial intelligence, with the S&P 500 climbing to 8,000 by year’s end, according to Deutsche Bank Research.

“Rapid AI investment and adoption will continue to dominate market sentiment. Given the pace of technological advancement, it is difficult to believe this won’t translate into meaningful productivity gains ahead,” Jim Reid, global head of macro and thematic research at Deutsche Bank Research, wrote on Monday. “However, the ultimate winners and losers will depend on a complex interplay of evolving factors, many of which may not become apparent until after 2026.”

“The 8,000 year-end S&P 500 target from our US equity strategist — our most optimistic analyst — is notable given his strong track record,” Reid added.

— Sarah Min

Evercore ISI is maintaining its conviction on the S&P 500’s future growth after a strong third-quarter earnings season, but expects volatility in the market to continue.

Julian Emanuel, Evercore chief equity, derivatives and quantitative strategist, said the firm’s new S&P 500 forecast for 2026 is 7,750.

“Record concentration risk and elevated valuations though can accentuate short term turbulence common in structural bull markets,” he wrote in a Sunday note to clients. “Bouts of volatility, such as last week’s episode, are likely to persist, and offer opportunities to add exposure to structural long term AI themes in O/P rated sectors Information Technology, Communication Services and Consumer Discretionary.”

Emanuel raised his year-end earnings per share expectations for the S&P 500 by $9 to to $273. He also lifted his 2026 earnings per share expectations to $296 from $287, saying that fundamental strength in the index will likely be supported by stimulative fiscal policy and ongoing AI spending.

— Pia Singh

The Federal Reserve will get one last look at inflation, albeit a dated one, before it meets in December.

The Commerce Department on Monday said it will release September’s personal consumption expenditures price index on Dec. 5, four days before the central bank next convenes for a policy meeting. Though it views inflation though multiple data points, the PCE price index is its main forecasting tool, with special emphasis on the core measure that excludes food and energy.

Along with the inflation gauge, the department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis also will release readings on personal income and spending.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics will release its own consumer price index, for October, on Dec. 19. Releases have been delayed due to the government shutdown.

— Jeff Cox

Check out the companies making the biggest moves midday:

• Novo Nordisk— The Danish pharmaceutical company’s trial for Alzheimer’s diseasefailed to meet its main goalof slowing the disease’s progression. Shares tumbled nearly 6%.
• Inspire Medical Systems— The maker of an obstructive sleep apnea treatment will benefit from Friday’s decision by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to raise reimbursement rates for Outpatient Prospective Payment Systems and Ambulatory Surgical Centers, Stifel Financial said Sunday. Stifel upgraded Inspire to buy from hold and raised its price target 10% to $110. Shares jump nearly 30% on the news.
• U.S. Foods— The food supplier rallied 7% after itscrapped a potential mergerwithPerformance Food Group. U.S. Foods also reiterated its full year outlook and authorized a new $1 billion share buyback program.

Read here for the full list.

— Scott Schnipper

Broadcomshares rallied 10.3% on Monday, as investors poured back into several high-flying tech companies tied to the artificial intelligence trade. Wall Street is also taking notice of the chipmaker as a derivate play ofAlphabet’sgrowing AI dominance.

Broadcom — one of the biggest suppliers of high-performance, application-specific chips, or ASICs, for hyperscalers — has been on a tear this year, rallying 60% year to date. Monday’s puts Broadcom shares on pace for their best day since April 9. The stock is also the best performer in theTechnology Select Sector SPDR fund (XLK), which tracks the S&P 500 tech sector.

The move in Broadcom comes as investors continue to push shares of Google-parentAlphabethigher. The stock rose more than 5% as the artificial intelligence trade regained some of the recently lost ground.

The two are related through ASICs: Google is a major customer of Broadcom’s ASIC business, as Broadcom helps design and manufacture Google’s tensor processing units (TPUs). These are Google’s in-house specialized AI chips, used for the company’s internal AI infrastructure. Google TPUs are a considered a competitor to Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs) for AI workloads. Read more.

— Pia Singh

Investors are worried that Alphabet‘s recent gains within artificial intelligence spells bad news for other stocks in the space.

Shares of the Google parent surged more than 5% on Monday, adding to last week’s gain of more than 8%. On the other hand, Nvidia and the Nasdaq Composite are both coming off losing weeks.

“Some investors are petrified that Alphabet will win the AI war due to huge improvements in its Gemini AI model and ongoing benefits from its custom TPU chip,” Melius Research analyst Ben Reitzes wrote to clients in a Monday note. “GOOGL winning would actually hurt several stocks we cover — so prepare for volatility.”

CNBC Pro subscribers can click here for the full story.

— Alex Harring

On Monday, 17 stocks in the S&P 500 reached new 52-week highs.

Tickers that hit this milestone included:

• Alphabet A sharetrading all-time highs back to its IPO on Aug. 19, 2004
• Ralph Laurentrading at all-time highs back to its IPO in June 1997
• Monster Beverage (formerly Hansen Natural)trading at all-time high levels back to its listing on the NASDAQ in 1992
• Hartford Financial trading at all-time highs back to its IPO in December 1995
• Travelerstrading at all-time highs back to its spin-off from Citi in 2002
• Biogen trading at levels not seen since October 2024
• Eli Lilly trading at all-time high levels back to 1952 when the company offered its first public shares of stock
• McKessontrading all-time highs back through our history to 1983
• Universal Health trading at levels not seen since October 2024
• Cummins Inctrading at all-time highs back to its IPO in 1947

The two stocks that traded at new 52-week lows were:

• Copart trading at lows not seen since April 2023
• Motorola Solutionstrading at lows not seen since June 2024

— Christopher Hayes, Lisa Kailai Han

Grindr plunged more than 11% on Monday after a special committee said it was ending engagement on a take-private proposal.

The LGBTQ+-focused dating app said it had uncertainty around financing in the deal. Shares surged in mid October after major shareholders first expressed interest in taking the company private and then offered $18 per share in an official proposal.

Grindr, 1-day

Grindr shares have dropped more than 31% this year after jumping around 103% in 2024.

— Alex Harring

Investors are underweight stocks for the first time in four months, with room for further selling, according to Deutsch Bank Research.

“In our reading, equity positioning is now underweight for the first time since July (-0.15sd, 34th percentile),” strategist Parag Thatte wrote on Friday.

“Systematic strategies have also been cutting exposure and are now only modestly overweight (0.29, 56th percentile), in contrast to early October when their positioning was in the top decile,” he continued. “But their sensitivity to further volatility is high and they have room to keep selling if trends weaken.”

— Sarah Min

Michael Burry, the investor who shot to fame for calling the housing crash before 2008, has launched a Substack newsletter after deregistering his hedge fund, aiming to lay out in detail his increasingly bearish thesis on artificial intelligence.

“The Big Short” investor is capitalizing on the massive audience he’s built on X, where 1.6 million followers have long parsed his cryptic posts. His new publication, titled “Cassandra Unchained” with a $379 annual subscription fee, arrives with a familiar warning: He believes markets are once again deep in bubble territory. Read more.

— Yun Li

With the race still on to see who will take over as Federal Reserve chair next year, Governor Christopher Waller said Monday he recently had another interview with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who is running the search.

Waller and Bessent met 10 days ago, describing it in a Fox Business interview as “a great meeting.”

“Once again, he and I seem to hit it off very well, talking about economics, the economy, financial markets,” Waller said. “They’re never been political. They’re straight about economics, and that’s just been a great time for me to sit and talk with them.”

Powell’s term as chair expires in May 2026. Waller said he would continue having news conference after every Federal Open Market Committee meeting, a Powell initiative that extended the traditional quarterly meetings with the press.

— Jeff Cox

Stocks traded higher on Monday morning.

The Nasdaq Composite gained 1.1% shortly after 9:30 a.m. ET, and the S&P 500 advanced 0.7%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ticked higher by 91 points, or 0.2%.

— Sean Conlon

GOOGL, 1-day

Last week, Google announced its latest AI model known as Gemini 3, and some believe that the recent development possibly positions the company to win the AI race over others like ChatGPT creator OpenAI.

“I’ve used ChatGPT every day for 3 years. Just spent 2 hours on Gemini 3. I’m not going back,” said Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff in a post on X over the weekend. “The leap is insane — reasoning, speed, images, video … everything is sharper and faster. It feels like the world just changed, again.”

— Sean Conlon

Here are some of the names making moves before the opening bell:

• Tesla — The EV maker added 2.2% after CEO Elon Musk said on X that the company is close to finalizing its latest artificial-intelligence chip, A15, and is starting work on A16.
• Oscar Health, Centene, Molina Healthcare — The health-care stocks all moved higher following a Politico report that the White House will include a two-year extension of the Affordable Care Act subsidies due to expire next month and new limits on eligibility. Oscar Health jumped nearly 20%, while Centene rose 9% and Molina Healthcare added almost 6%.
• Alibaba — U.S.-listed shares of the Chinese e-commerce company moved 4% higher after announcing its AI-app, Qwen, had 10 million downloads within its first week of launching.

To see more premarket movers, read the full story here.

— Michelle Fox

Wedbush now has more conviction when it comes toCarvanagoing forward.

The investment firm upgraded the online used-car dealership to an outperform rating from neutral. Analyst Scott Devitt also raised his 12-month price target to $400 from $380, implying a gain of about 29% from Friday’s close.

While shares of Carvana have surged 52% this year, Devitt pointed to its 13% sell-off in the last month as a catalyst for the stock. He attributed this reaction mainly to “underwhelming near-term performance” from CarMax, its “closest peer,” alongside broader rising concerns within the credit markets. CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

CVNA, 1-day

JPMorgan sees an AI-powered future ahead for Chinese internet services providerBaidu.

The bank upgraded the Chinese internet services stock to an overweight rating from neutral. It also hiked its price target for U.S.-domiciled shares to $188 from $110, which signals 69% upside ahead.

BIDU, 1-day

Analyst Alex Yao’s upgrade comes as cloud and AI are set to become Baidu’s growth engines and value drivers. He believes that the market is underestimating this transition and suggested investors buy into Baidu now to capture the valuation rerating. CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

— Lisa Kailai Han

Shares of Novo Nordisk on Monday fell as much 11% after the Danish drug pharmaceutical company said a highly-anticipated trial for Alzheimer’s disease failed to meet its main goal.

The trial tested whether semaglutide— the active ingredient in Novo’s blockbuster diabetes and weight loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy — helped slow progression for Alzheimer’s disease. Read more.

NVO, 1-day

Wall Street is still on edge as it tries to build on the sharp gains observed in the previous session, according to Adam Crisafulli of Vital Knowledge.

“US equitiesaretrying to extend their gainsfrom Friday, butinvestor confidence remains frazzledby the MTD volatility, andpeople are hesitant to chaseuntilequities can demonstrate more stability,” he said in a note to clients. “Themain areas of conversationinclude theoutlook for the AI trade(which is fracturing, as sentiment cools on OpenAI and its ecosystem partners while Google surges to the fore) andthe Fed.

— Fred Imbert

Expectations for a December rate cut jumped noticeably after New York Federal Reserve President John Williams signaled he sees room for “further adjustment” to interest rates.

“I view monetary policy as being modestly restrictive, although somewhat less so than before our recent actions,” he said in remarks for a speech in Santiago, Chile. “Therefore, I still see room for a further adjustment in the near term to the target range for the federal funds rate to move the stance of policy closer to the range of neutral, thereby maintaining the balance between the achievement of our two goals.”

Futures markets now assign almost a 70% probability that the Fed will trim rates by another quarter point at its final meeting of the year on Dec. 10 — up from about 44% a week earlier, CME FedWatch data show. The Fed’s benchmark rate currently sits between 3.75% and 4.00%.

— Yun Li

Investors are grappling with the shaky state of government economic data.

On Friday, traders learned the Fed won’t receive a key inflation reading before its next rate decision, after the Bureau of Labor Statistics scrapped the release of October’s consumer price index.

November’s CPI report — originally set for Dec. 10 — has also been pushed to Dec. 18, coming after the Fed meets.

— Yun Li