November 2025 Market Recap: Rotation, Reality Checks, and a Crypto Chill

Doug Oosterhart, CFP®
1 hour ago
3 min read

November felt like the moment the music at the party slowed down. After a stellar run earlier in the year, the market took a breather — especially the names that had been leading the dance.

Quick Scorecard for the Major Indexes

Dow Jones Industrial Average → up about 0.3% (extended its seven-month winning streak)
S&P 500 → down roughly 0.5%
Nasdaq Composite → down roughly 2.5% (its first monthly loss since spring)
Russell 2000 (small-caps) → up close to 1%

What Actually Happened

The mega-cap tech and AI stocks that carried the market for most of 2025 finally ran into some skepticism. Investors started asking whether the hundreds of billions being poured into AI data centers and chips were producing returns fast enough to justify the sky-high valuations. Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta, and others all gave back ground, pulling the Nasdaq lower and ending its long streak of monthly gains.

Meanwhile, the “rest of the market” quietly took the baton:

Financial stocks (Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, American Express) hit fresh highs.
Industrials and rate-sensitive small-caps continued to benefit from the Fed’s three rate cuts that began in September.
The Dow — heavy on banks and old-economy giants — eked out another positive month.

Rate-Cut Hopes Kept Climbing

With softer private-sector jobs numbers and lingering data gaps from the recent 43-day government shutdown, traders pushed the odds of a fourth quarter-point cut in December well above 70%. Lower rates remained rocket fuel for anything interest-rate-sensitive.

Crypto Caught the Chill Too

Bitcoin and the broader crypto market weren’t immune to the risk-off mood. After flirting with new highs earlier in the year, Bitcoin dropped roughly 10% in November and briefly dipped to a six-month low. Profit-taking, higher bond yields, and the tech-sector pullback all contributed to the cooldown.

The Bottom Line for Investors

November was a textbook rotation month: money flowed out of the most crowded (and expensive) trade — mega-cap AI and tech — and into sectors that had been ignored for years. For anyone with a diversified portfolio, the month was far from disastrous; in many cases it actually felt constructive.

As we head into the final Fed meeting of 2025 and the holiday-shortened December trading calendar, the broader trend still looks supportive: rates are moving lower, corporate earnings remain healthy, and market leadership is finally widening.

Here’s to finishing the year strong — and to a happy, healthy holiday season!

Articles and Sources from the month: