US Stocks Slip as Crypto Rout Deepens, BOJ Hints at Policy Shift

US Stocks Slip as Crypto Rout Deepens, BOJ Hints at Policy Shift

US Stocks Slip as Crypto Rout Deepens, BOJ Hints at Policy Shift Good morning on Wall Street. I'm Brian Cieszy, executive editor of Yahoo Finance, and this is the opening bid.

We've got everything for you today, from Bitcoin's new flight into the markets to surprisingly solid retail sales results to kick off the holiday shopping season. Then there's President Trump saying

that he's decided who the next Fed chair will be. The Federal Reserve's next rate decision is just 10 days away. So, here's a busy week out of the gate on Monday.

With that said, let's head over to Brooke Palma at the NASDAQ in Times Square to see what's hot out of the gate here. Good morning, Brian. Well, we're definitely looking down on all three major indexes

with the Dow, NASDAQ, and S&P500 all starting this week's trading session in the red after a short trading week last week. But if you look at it

So, the NASDAQ is taking this downtrend down about 8/10th of a percent, extending the downtrend that we saw or rather, you know, what we saw last week

in reverse. But the Dow is also leaning down about 610 percent according to the S&P 500 which is posting about 610 percent down at the start of this trading session.

I want to quickly go to the Nasdaq to take a look at what's actually driving this downtrend. We have a lot of AI chips like Nvidia, Broadcom and Palunteer, AMD are all down 1%

with Broadcom bordering on 2% and Palunteer also down 2%. But Mag 7 is also seeing some downtrend from Meta as well as Tesla. Google is seeing a little bit of a downtrend

and Apple is also down. But the big story today that I know we’ll be getting into is the extreme crypto on this show as we head into the end of the year

We’re seeing a reversal in that risk sentiment among investors. As you can see here, crypto is crossing below that 85,000 level for the first time in a while.

It’s down about 6% now in intraday trading. And that really adds to the downward momentum that we’ve been seeing over the last month, down about 22% in the last month alone.

And that sentiment has spread to crypto stocks. Think about companies like Robinhood. In addition, we have other companies

that are seeing over 40% downward momentum in the last month alone when it comes to Argo Blockchain. And so certainly this morning, including Coinbase down about 5% to start today’s trading session.

But even so, despite this risk sentiment in the market, we know that consumers are looking for these deals to kick off or end this Cyber ​​Weekend,

They are expecting to spend about $14.2 billion today alone. And we are seeing a bit of a mixed picture in retail stocks this morning with Nike, Lowe's, TJ Maxx, Costco, and Home Depot in the red, along with Spotify and many more in the red.

Sy. Okay. Thanks a lot, Brooke. Really appreciate it. Okay, okay, here's what's on my watch list. Bitcoin's path is back on track. Bitcoin prices have begun a weekly drill.

Here are the top two reasons why. One, S&P Global Ratings last week downgraded its stability assessment of the world's largest stablecoin, USDT, to a low. The company warned that a further decline in Bitcoin's value could lead to the token being collateralized.

New comments from Strategy CEO Fong Li, who said on a podcast on Friday that a Bitcoin storage token holder could sell if its enterprise value to Bitcoin holdings ratio goes negative. We could sell Bitcoin

and if we need to pay a dividend of less than 1x, we would sell Bitcoin. Now, as we see, you know, Bitcoinwinter, as we see our MNAV shrink, my expectation

is that our MNAV will not go below anything. But if we did and we had no other access to capital, we would sell Bitcoin.

Strategy also issued cautious guidance this morning to reflect the decline in Bitcoin prices. There is a month left in the trading year. There could be a lot of catalysts this month after the Fed’s Dec. 10 interest rate decision.

One of them is the release of the Dec. 16 jobs report. Another of our analysts is correcting earnings estimates for companies for the fourth quarter, with results starting to come in mid-January.

And it’s Cyber ​​Monday. Despite the widely publicized recession that’s been plaguing shoppers, the start of the holiday shopping season looks promising for many retailers.

Black Friday retail sales, including auto services, rose 4.1%, according to MasterCard Spending Plus data. That’s stronger than last year’s 3.4% growth. AdobeAnalytics says

Consumers spent a record $11.8 billion online on Black Friday, up 9.1% year over year. Here, in the early-bid roundtable, Adam Coons, Winthrop Capital’s chief investment officer, Nicole Inouye,

HSBC’s head of U.S. equity strategy, and Brooke DePalma, a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance. Well,Good morning everyone. Oh Brooke, let's get back to you on the start of the holiday shopping season. Really, what did you read here? Because sales were looking strong,

But we've been talking all week, really the last couple of weeks about this bearable crisis. Brian, I was surprised to see that despite the fact that we've been seeing deals for months now,

consumers continued to show up this past Cyber ​​Weekend, you know, even starting on Thanksgiving, even as we were giving thanks for a week that started on Monday.

Adobe had consumers spend about $11.8 billion on Friday alone. Combined Saturday and Sunday, they spent another $11.8 billion. Now, Cyber ​​Monday is expected to be another record with $14.2 billion spent.

And from what I'm reading, it's a very deal-seeking environment. Consumers are really looking for the ultimate deals. They expect furniture, electronics and apparel to increase today.

And it seems like they're probably waiting until this moment to see, hey, am I going to get the best deal this weekend? And am I finally going to splurge after that?

But of course these deals have been going on since the summer, since July. And so it's interesting to see that consumers continued to show up at record spending this weekend.

Nicole, welcome to the roundtable. It's great to see you here this morning. I'm going to get into your perspective that you just presented for next year, but I wanted

Before I get to that, you just mentioned um at wospeed market or the economy. When you drill down into the consumer, is the consumer probably more,

I guess more elastic than the market prices? Well, you know, kind of K-shaped and we've been talking about it for a year now.

It looks like it's going to continue through 2026. And so, what Brook was talking about with respect to Black Friday, Cyber ​​Monday, is very interesting, consumers are spending,

but they're looking for deals. So, when you look at 2026, yes, the consumer is spending, but they're focused on companies that can offer an attractive value proposition.

So, you know, when we look at 2026, we're still looking at the consumer where the high-end consumer is doing very well.

The low-end consumer is under pressure. So, you need to be very selective in the consumer discretionary space. But we're looking again at companies

that can gain share. So, where they can offer a very attractive value proposition and bring consumers into stores from all different income groups

and really outperform. Again, I think this is a good Black Friday, Cyber ​​Monday, you're seeing that it's really an example of shoppers looking for deals

and a lower-priced consumer that's still under pressure. And going into next year, again, the K-sized consumer that we think continues. We think it's broad

and you have to look at either companies that are focused on the high-end consumer or really companies that can participate in that kind of environment. Adam, I'm surprised by those numbers.

Oh, I thought they would be a little bit lower in terms of growth rates where the consumer is in this country. Any interest in getting into arbitrary consumer names more than those numbers are going to end up on your end?

I mean, do you want that in your portfolio by next year? Yeah. I mean, I think what was said there, you have to be careful.

And think what you're seeing here is obviously the upper end is doing what they're doing. They're going to keep spending. The bargain hunters are the ones who have stopped buying

And they've seen that the tariffs haven't really caused the inflation that they were reading about on social media or hearing that was coming. And so they're feeling a little bit better now

And they might be able to let you know about the specific products that are going to be going out at the end of the year because you know the job picture is still intact. While you know

that it's getting a little bit worse overall when you look at it on a relative basis you know the consumer oh the working man is still fixing you

and so yeah I think you want to know look at the different stocks I'm going to focus more on the luxury end right now because of this K shaped kind of proposition that we've all been talking about

but now you need to talk about it. product matters you know you have to be very selective before we go to our cha Bitcoin. Take a look or listen to what Hilton CEO Chris Neta just told me on my unfiltered podcast about Save the Shopper, my opening bid.

Oh well, Chris, I spoke to him and he actually talks about what you guys said about, you know, the difference between high- and low-income consumers.

So, it’s very interesting there. There’s no decline in business. So, I guess the holiday season will come to a company like Hilton. But Brooke, let’s talk to you about Bitcoin here.

I mean, you’re seeing another week where crypto sells off at the end of the week and then it continues to sell off through the week. Yeah, that’s what

we’re seeing at the open. Brian, if you look at Bitcoin, we saw it drop below 85,000 to start this week’s trading session.

And when we talk about cryptocurrency, what we're really seeing across the board is this risk. Bitcoin is down about 5a.5%, Ethereum is down more than 7%

Ripple is down 7a.5% in today's trading session alone, and even Dogecoin is down about 10%. And that extends what we've been seeing over the last month,

Especially when it comes to Bitcoin. We're seeing over 21% of its sell-off in the last month alone as investors have probably moved away from safe havens like gold, silver.

Gold also hit a six-week high on the expectation of that rate cut, and silver hit a high as well. Adam, how concerned are you, you know,

Bitcoin, about the volatility that's come back here, mostly on the downside. Well, I think you have to look at the bigger picture here. If you look at Bitcoin in isolation, you might get the wrong idea.

It's clearly a risk-on trade, but you have to look at the overall picture, you have stocks down this morning. Oh, those are the big headlines, but you have to look at the dollar as well.

The Dixieindex is down this morning. Uh, and then you have bonds. So rates across the curve are up, you know, six to seven basis points.

And what you have to start thinking about is that in March and April you had this most where you know not only risk assets but risk assets that are in the U.S. dollar.

And I think that has to do with consumers, which means investors. Oh, because it really points to the picture that there's a little bit of exhaustion in the U.S. markets.

And investors are starting to pull their money out. Nicole, I liked your outlook for your outlook note for next year and I liked that one quote among many.

You're looking at another year of double-digit acquisitions that reflects the late '9sequity boom. So my thought was that we were worried about an AI bubble,

but maybe that bubble will expand further. Well, I think you know that's exactly what we're saying. So, you know, if we're in a bubble,

if we're not in a bubble, I think really at the end of the day, we're watching and seeing when this bubble starts to burst. And as long as you have hyperscalers growing revenue at double-digit rates

you have that capital that's being deployed. Oh you have this AI adoption kind of continuing to grow. We think the bubble will continue to inflate.

And when you think about the late 1990s boom, you know, it lasted for 5 years. It was, you know, a couple of years and then nothing.

It actually went on for quite a while and then there was a strong meltdown, which of course we haven't seen in the AI ​​business yet. And obviously when we look at the companies now compared to the balance sheets of the late 1990s

everything that says about that is that there are stronger profits and there is a gap in who the winners are going to be. I think that was a big question mark in the dot-com boom in the late 1990s

You know we didn't know who the winners were going to be and I think it's a little bit clearer now given the concentration that we're seeing in spending and so on.

You know who the winners are going to be in this AI business eventually. So, um, you know, it's similar to the late 1990s, but I would say it's a healthy, um, uptrend,

And we think there's still time to continue this momentum in this AI investment boom. Nicole, you mentioned that we'll see AI go out of trend next year.

Is another way to look at it is that next year is the meltdown that you were just talking about? I don't know if that's going to be the next topic or not but when we think about AI trading

When we look at the S&P return since Independence Day, it's really focused on you know Mag 7 and tech so it shows that when we saw the day of about a 90% return.

In the next year we think investors should broaden this AI business so that you are looking at the enablers that you are looking at the adopters

And when you look at next year's earnings growth again we are expecting another strong year of earnings growth 12% you know mag 7 will still grow at a fast pace

But it is going to slow down so we are not And we're seeing a lift from other sectors so financial industrial facilities um should report very good earnings next year

And at the same time the gap between the likes of mag 7 and the rest should start to narrow so with that in mind investors should broaden and grow their investments in different sectors going into 2026.

Lots to discuss here on the show. Coming up, we take a look at atone stock which has exploded. Gained 536% this year. And it's not a penny stock,

guys. More on that and what Elon Musk thinks about the US debt crisis. Next Monday is for stocks of the day and I want to present three names

that have surprised me this year. Hat tip to the Yahoo Finance social team oh social media team for pointing out one of these names on Instagram this weekend.

Memory chip maker SenDisk shares are up nearly 500% this year, driven by the company’s AI pricing for its gear. I have two other surprises

that I want to call out. We’re in the middle of an AI boom. Yet Salesforce shares are down, get this, 31% this year. That’s despite the company having another year of AI agents.

And then there’s Nike. Its shares are down 15% this year even as Nike’s Elliott Hill has been in the CEO job for more than a year. Interesting. Let’s take some hot takes from the roundtable.

Adam Koons, Nicole Anouilh, and Brooke DePalama. Brooke, I’m going to start with Nike here. I’m surprised Elliott Hill’s stock hasn’t gained more.

I mean, he seems to me to have solved their inventory crisis. He’s been driving some innovation. He’s cut costs.

Like, what else does it need to do? Well, it seems like investors want to do it more. I think it's a bit of a wait and see game when it comes to Nike

because investors really want to see the fruit of this turnaround story that Elliott Hill has been leading for the past year now. Investors really want to see this company do well in a full-price environment

that we know they're discounting less. They also want to get back to wholesalers. I think Dick's Sporting Goods is also on Foot Locker,

which Dick's Sporting Goods recently acquired. These are partners that they've lost in the past because they're really focused on this DTOC that goes to the consumer model.

And clearly investors are still waiting to see that really turn around and really turn around. And it seems like they're still not convinced

of how that's going to play out when you have other competitors like Hoka and they're doing well in that environment. Adam, when you look at a company like Salesforce,

uh, talking about software AI agents that's trying to get into the AI ​​narrative yet its stock is down over 30%, what do I mean this year? It's a story of many different names.

I mean, you take Corewave as another example that you know the AI ​​label is still significantly undervalued. And I think it just comes back to the fact

that, you know, not all AI players are going to be winners here. And part of that is, you know, we're looking for an AI story that we're treading carefully,

but we're looking for companies where, you know, AI really enhances an already strong business model. And what I would say is, you know,

even before that, the Salesforce model itself, you know, was kind of fragile. And trying to put AI into the mix, uh, has really created some barriers. You know,

if you look at the culture of the firm, it actually just creates more barriers with staffing and layoffs. And so there's a lot of uncertainty and that can create,