For the week ending November 28, 2025

This holiday-shortened Thanksgiving week gave us a classic mixed bag of data—some real bright spots in housing and labor, but ugly misses in confidence, retail spending, and manufacturing that remind us the consumer is getting a little tired after years of inflation erosion. Inflation remains remarkably tame, yields keep grinding lower, and the fourth-quarter growth tracker is still signaling a solid if not spectacular, at least respectable pace.

Labor Market - The labor market continues to defy the doom-and-gloom crowd with another low claims print.

• Initial jobless claims came in at 216K—ten thousand better than expected and lower than the prior 222K.

• Continuing claims edged up to 1,960K from 1,953K, basically noise.

• ADP’s weekly tracker showed a rare −13.5K drop, worse than the prior week’s −2.5K, but no one treats the weekly number as gospel.

Inflation - Producer price inflation stayed very well behaved, exactly what the Fed wants to see.

• Core PPI (MoM) for September printed +0.1%, below the +0.2% expected and up from −0.1% prior.

• Headline PPI +0.3%, exactly on consensus and a solid rebound from the prior −0.1%.

Consumer Spending - September retail sales were soft across the board—consumers are clearly pulling back a bit.

• Headline retail sales +0.2% MoM vs +0.4% expected and prior +0.6%.

• Core (ex-auto) +0.3%, met expectations but sharply slower than prior +0.6%.

• Control group (the GDP input) −0.1% vs +0.3% expected and prior +0.6%.

• Retail inventories ex-auto flat at 0.0% vs +0.3% expected—retailers are not restocking aggressively.

Housing Market - Pending home sales delivered the upside surprise of the week and the only unambiguously strong number.

• Pending home sales +1.9% MoM in October, crushed the +0.5% forecast and prior +0.1%.

• Case-Shiller 20-city YoY +1.4% in September, in line but still decelerating from +1.6% prior.

• Case-Shiller monthly −0.5%, slightly better than prior −0.6%.

Business Sentiment & Manufacturing - Confidence indicators got hammered; these were the ugliest prints of the week.

• Conference Board consumer confidence collapsed to 88.7 from 95.5, way below the 93.5 expected.

• Chicago PMI fell to 36.3—deep contraction territory—versus 44.3 expected and prior 43.8.

• Durable goods orders +0.5% MoM, matched consensus but a big step down from prior (likely revised) +3.0%.

• Core durable goods (ex-transport) +0.6%, actually beat the prior +0.5%—so capital spending plans still look okay.

Growth Outlook - Atlanta Fed GDPNow for Q4 was trimmed but still shows respectable growth.

• Model moved from 4.2% → 4.0% → final update 3.9%—still well above the 2.5–2.8% most Wall Street economists are carrying.

Treasury Auctions & Yields - Auctions were very well received; yields continue to drift lower.

• 2-year auction 3.489% vs prior 3.504%.

• 5-year 3.562% vs prior 3.625%.

• 7-year 3.781% vs prior 3.790%.
  Solid demand, curve remains inverted but the long end is catching a safe-haven bid.

Energy - Oil inventories surprised to the upside (bearish), rigs keep falling.

• EIA crude inventories +2.774 mbbls vs −1.3 mbbls expected.

• Baker Hughes oil rig count dropped another 12 to 407.

Fiscal - October deficit came in much wider than expected as spending outpaced receipts.

• Federal budget balance −$284B vs −$223B forecast and swung from prior month’s +$198B.

Bottom line: the economy is slowing but not collapsing, inflation is cooperating, the labor market is still tight, and lower yields plus that huge pending home sales beat give us reasons to stay constructive heading into year-end.