Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during morning trading on November 17, 2025 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Stocks seesawed on Monday as Wall Street awaited a number of key releases this week, including Nvidia earnings and the September jobs report.
The S&P 500 traded up 0.1%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was around the flatline. The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.2%. The three major averages teetered between positive and negative territory after opening the session with losses.
Alphabet surged more than 4% after Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway revealed it had taken a stake in the Google and YouTube parent. Investors were encouraged that Berkshire still finds value in the AI name after a big run this year, although Buffett himself likely was not directly responsible for the purchase, but rather his two equity managers.
Artificial intelligence chip darling Nvidia was down more than 1% ahead of the company’s third-quarter results, which are scheduled for after the bell on Wednesday. The chipmaker and other names in the AI trade were a source of recent pressure as investors have grown anxious about stretched valuations.
“It’ll be, on one hand, important for Nvidia to confirm that demand is still there, that they’re not seeing a slowdown,” said Baird investment strategist Ross Mayfield. “But unless they take it a step further, I think it’s only going to leave the second question more open-ended, which is, ‘We know there’s demand for compute, [so] what is the [return on investment] for the firms that are buying all of these chips?'”
“If they offer any even slightly muted guidance or forecast for demand for their chips, the market would take that poorly,” he added.
Walmart will report before the market opens Thursday, and those results could offer insights into just how tapped out the consumer is and demonstrate if spending is bifurcated, Mayfield said.
“Consumer stocks, especially in absence of some of this labor market data, are going to be super, super important for how the market feels about this coming holiday season,” he continued.
Investors will also be eyeing Thursday’s September nonfarm payrolls reading, the first to be divulged in the wake of the economic data blackout from the U.S. government shutdown. The report as well as this week’s release of the Federal Reserve’s October meeting minutes – even if somewhat “stale” – could offer some clarity at a time when the market is “still in a bit of a data vacuum for the next couple of weeks as the government gets back on pace,” Mayfield said.
“I don’t anticipate getting a lot more solid data for the Fed to chew on before they have to make their call,” he told CNBC. “At this point, we’re getting the administration taking tariffs off the table or reducing levels. That should give the Fed even more confidence that they can cut, so I think a cut should be the base case, even though the move over the last couple of weeks has been to price that out a bit.”
The market has been reducing its expectations that the Fed will lower its benchmark overnight borrowing rate by a quarter percentage point at its final meeting of the year next month. Fed funds futures traders are currently calling for a roughly 40% chance of a cut, down substantially from the more than 90% probability priced in a month ago, according to the CME FedWatch tool.
