Weekly Vibe
Thanksgiving week delivered a classic holiday melt-up: the S&P 500 jumped ~3.7%, the Dow ~3.2%, and the Nasdaq ~4.9%, marking the best Thanksgiving week for the S&P since 2008.
The twist: Alphabet stole the AI spotlight with Gemini 3, while Nvidia stayed in the penalty box after its recent post-earnings slide. Holiday volumes were light (Thursday closed, Friday a half-day), but Mag7 leadership + Black Friday spending + rising odds of a December Fed cut kept risk-on vibes very much alive.
🔍 GOOGL (Alphabet) | Steady | +0.5% WoW
“Gemini 3 turned Alphabet into the AI market’s main character.”
Alphabet kicked off the week with a 6.3% surge on Monday as markets digested Gemini 3, Google’s new flagship model, and a wave of high-profile praise (including Salesforce’s Marc Benioff publicly saying he’s “not going back” to rivals).
That enthusiasm helped push Alphabet toward a ~$4T valuation and leadership within the Mag7 by YTD % gains, with some commentators framing it as Nvidia’s first serious rival in AI compute and infrastructure.
Impact: Alphabet is fast morphing from “AI optionality” to AI platform leader—and this week, the market traded it like the new center of gravity for the Mag7.
🕶 META (Meta) | Cautious | +5.7% WoW
“Big AI and metaverse bets got a holiday repricing.”
Meta participated in the tech rebound as part of the “high-growth / Mag7” complex that investors revisited into Thanksgiving week—especially in commentary asking which AI names could rival Nvidia’s long-term market cap by 2030.
Yet analysts and macro pieces still flagged heavy capex and long-dated payoffs as key overhangs.
Impact: Meta’s massive AI & infrastructure bets remain front and center—this week, the market leaned “reward,” but the room for error is slim.
💻 MSFT (Microsoft) | Mixed | +3.8% WoW
“Holiday AI bounce with a side of capex questions.”
Microsoft rode the tech-led Thanksgiving rally, climbing alongside Oracle and Nvidia in pre-holiday sessions as investors rotated back into mega-cap AI platforms.
At the same time, strategists kept pointing out that “long Mag7” (including MSFT) remains one of the most crowded trades, with AI capex and valuation risk increasingly in the conversation.
Impact: Microsoft still wears the “must-own AI compounder” crown—but this week reminded everyone that positioning and capex math now matter as much as hype.
💾 NVDA (Nvidia) | Bullish | -3% WoW
“From AI hero to ‘prove-it’ mode.”
Post-earnings, Nvidia spent much of November down double-digits for the month, even as broader tech bounced into the holiday. Recaps of the week repeatedly framed Nvidia as the AI stock that delivered numbers but couldn’t escape valuation gravity.
Thanksgiving-week commentary also leaned into a new narrative: Alphabet’s Gemini 3 + custom AI chips positioning Google as a credible long-term challenger to Nvidia’s ~90% accelerator share, further pressuring sentiment.
Impact: Nvidia is still the AI hardware bellwether, but this week solidified a shift from “can it grow?” to “how much of that growth is already priced in—and who’s coming for its moat?”
🍎 AAPL (Apple) | Bullish with caveats | +1.1% WoW
“iPhone crown + holiday bellwether.”
Multiple reports this week highlighted that Apple is on track to overtake Samsung in smartphone shipments for the first time in ~14 years, powered by strong iPhone 17 demand and a big upgrade cycle.
Thanksgiving-week market recaps also cast Apple as a key Black Friday bellwether, with investors watching iPhone + services trends as a proxy for consumer health and tech leadership into year-end.
Impact: Apple may not have the noisiest AI story yet, but between smartphone dominance and holiday demand, it remained one of the Mag7’s stealth winners of the week.
📦 AMZN (Amazon) | Holiday Bullish | +3.1% WoW
“Black Friday runs through Seattle.”
Amazon sat squarely at the center of record-breaking Black Friday online spending, as U.S. shoppers shelled out $11.8B online—up 9.1% YoY—helped by AI-powered shopping tools and retailer chatbots.
Amazon’s own Black Friday Week event pushed aggressive promotions across electronics, home, and beauty, reinforcing its role as the demand barometer for both consumers and cloud-driven retail data.
Impact: Amazon stayed in the Mag7 spotlight less via headlines and more via sheer volume—if holiday spending holds up, AWS + retail data give it extra leverage into 2026.
⚡ TSLA (Tesla) | Calm-ish | +3% WoW
“EV + AI adjacency, holiday edition..”
• Macro (Black Friday bump):
Tesla finished the short Thanksgiving week on a strong note, rising ~1.4% in early Black Friday trading as part of the broader tech rebound. TSLA participated fully in what became the best Thanksgiving week for the S&P since 2008, giving it a lift in an otherwise quiet holiday tape.
• AI / Autonomy (robotaxi expansion):
Elon Musk added a strategic jolt to the Tesla narrative by saying the company’s robotaxi fleet in Austin will “roughly double next month”—a move signaling Tesla’s intent to accelerate supervised self-driving ride-hail testing at scale. This puts fresh attention on Tesla’s autonomy roadmap heading into early 2026.
Impact:
Tesla remains a thematic satellite in the Mag7 — part EV cyclical, part AI optionality. This week, it benefited from both: holiday-driven tech strength in the short term, and a renewed autonomy storyline for the long term.
📊 Mag7 ETF Snapshot — Week of Mon 11/24 → Fri 11/28
Index | % Change |
|---|---|
Roundhill Magnificent Seven (MAGS) | 📈 +1.8% |
📊 Mag7 Snapshot — Week of Mon 11/24 → Fri 11/28
Company (Ticker) | % Change |
|---|---|
Apple (AAPL) | 📈 +1.1% |
Microsoft (MSFT) | 📈 +3.8% |
Alphabet (GOOGL) | 📈 +0.5% |
Amazon (AMZN) | 📈 +3.1% |
Meta (META) | 📈 +5.7% |
Nvidia (NVDA) | 📉 −3% |
Tesla (TSLA) | 📈 +3% |
🌊 The Ripple Effect
Best Thanksgiving week since 2008: S&P +3.7%, Dow +3.2%, Nasdaq +4.9% for the week, powered by tech leadership and rate-cut optimism.
AI trade split: Markets increasingly see two camps—names aligned with Google’s Gemini stack (Alphabet, select chip partners) vs. names tied more heavily to OpenAI / Nvidia, with performance diverging accordingly.
Concentration risk: Updated commentary still flags “long Mag7” as a crowded trade, with AI-linked capex and bubble risk showing up as top tail risks in fund-manager surveys.
Consumers showed up: Record $11.8B in Black Friday online sales, with AI agents influencing billions in global spend—good for Amazon and the broader “AI-enabled retail” narrative.
🔮 What’s Next
Fed watch: Futures now price a high probability of a December rate cut, making the next FOMC communication a key test for this rally.
AI leadership race: Expect more Gemini 3 vs. Nvidia coverage as investors reassess which names represent infrastructure, which represent applications—and how much each should be worth.
Holiday data drip: Black Friday was strong; now Cyber Monday + December retail updates will show whether consumer strength is broad or just deal-driven.
Positioning check: Any wobble in Mag7 could trigger fast de-risking from the crowded trade—watch flows into equal-weight and small-cap ETFs as a tell.
🧩 Closing Insight
This Thanksgiving week, the Mag7 didn’t just float the market—they defined the narrative:
Alphabet turned AI leadership into price action, Nvidia proved great results don’t guarantee green candles, and Apple + Amazon quietly reminded everyone that devices and commerce still pay the bills. The rally’s alive—but as we head into December, it’s looking more earned than effortless, and increasingly dependent on who can show real AI economics, not just great demos.
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