Wall Street: “Hey, November beat expectations. That’s… good, right?”

BLS: “Sure. Now let’s talk about October.”

Investors sat down at their monitors today thinking it just got handed a warm croissant and a cappuccino… only for the BLS to follow up with a surprise IRS letter, a parking ticket, and a reminder that October was a complete f***ing disaster.

At first glance, November looked fine. Great, even. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said the economy added 64,000 jobs, comfortably beating expectations of 45,000. For about five minutes, it felt like the economy might actually limp into year-end without falling down the stairs.

Then the BLS cleared its throat and said, “Oh by the way…”

October? Minus 105,000 jobs. Unemployment? Up to 4.6%, not down like everyone had hoped.

At that point, this stopped sounding like “solid progress” and started setting off alarms across the U.S. economy. And it doesn’t take Nostradamus to predict what happens next.

Just like that, the S&P 500 (-0.7%), Nasdaq (-0.4%), and Dow (-0.8%) all got taken to the cleaners, marking the second straight red day in the final full trading week before everyone makes New Year’s resolutions (they absolutely won’t keep).

The bigger issue here isn’t just one bad month… it’s the whiplash. One report says the job market’s holding together, the next says it’s actively leaking oil. And when employment starts wobbling, everyone immediately turns to Jerome Powell like a toddler staring at a cookie jar.

Will the Fed start inching toward rate cuts sooner? Or will Donnie Politics be back on Truth Social at 2 a.m. typing in ALL CAPS about how the economy is either rigged, sabotaged, or both?

Pick your fighter.

As if that wasn’t enough chaos for one day, Nasdaq decided to send Wall Street into freakout mode by filing paperwork with the SEC to push U.S. stocks toward 23-hour trading days, five days a week, starting in the second half of 2026.

Yes. Nearly 24/7 stock trading. Because what this market really needs is more exhausted traders, thinner liquidity, and even sharper overnight face-rips caused by one rogue headline and a guy trading futures from his phone at 3:17 a.m.

Under the proposal, stocks would trade from 4 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET, pause for one hour so the machines can catch their breath, then resume from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. Absolute sicko hours.

(Me buying more shares of Amazon at 3:29 am because I can’t wait until 9:30am):

Wall Street banks were… not happy Bob.

Wells Fargo’s trading desk didn’t bother with corporate politeness, calling it “literally the worst thing in the world.” 

Their reasoning? This would turbocharge everything that already drives professionals insane… thin liquidity, wild swings, and a market that’s slowly turning into a dopamine arcade.

Unofficially, this sounds a lot like professionals realizing their edge gets harder to protect when the market never closes.

Elsewhere in Stockland, Affirm levitated +10% after re-upping its Amazon marriage for another five years. Buy Now, Pay Later… till death (or delinquency) do us part. Very few things get investors going like being permanently welded to Bezos’ checkout button.

And pour a cold one for Pfizer which fell another 5% after releasing 2026 profit guidance that essentially said “despite having 2,000 different covid booster shots, we’re going broke.”

If you read all of this, congrats for having a 10 second attention span (better than me). As always, here’s our heatmap for today.

Market Gossip

>U.S. halts UK tech trade deal negotiations (CNBC): Translation: All deals are off until The Don gets his personal payout via the BBC lawsuit LOL. 

>U.S. crude oil drops below $55 a barrel, hits lowest level since early 2021 (CNBC): Gas stations are currently preparing a statement explaining why this doesn’t apply to you.

>Instagram Debuts Dedicated Television App for Amazon Fire TV (Bloomberg): Zuck brings the algorithm to the recliner class.

>TikTok Live Shopping Catches on in US With Kim Kardashian and Cookies (Bloomberg): Like QVC, but the hosts have lip fillers and BBL’s.

>Netflix doubles down on video podcasts with iHeartMedia deal (TechCrunch): The Joe Roganification of streaming continues.

Meme of the Day

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Amazon, Meta, and Netflix as mentioned in the article.