EB Daily Market Report - Brief Update - Tuesday, December 16, 2025

This will be very brief as I have a few meetings this afternoon and then we'll have our monthly Max Pain event at 5pm ET.  Room instructions for the event have been sent out separately.

The big news this morning is that the November nonfarm payrolls report, delayed due to the government shutdown, was released this morning and it came in close to expectations with jobs at 64,000, slightly higher than the 45,000 forecast.  The big number, in my view, was the unemployment report, which jumped from 4.4% to 4.6%, ahead of the 4.5% estimate.  Rising unemployment has a history of leading to recessions and market difficulty.  We should consider this as another potential warning signal as we wind down 2025 and get ready for 2026.

We've been seeing weak jobs reports for months and, just last week, the November ADP employment report turned negative.  Fortunately, the nonfarm payrolls stayed positive, but that escalation in the unemployment rate CAN be a problem.

Our major indices are fractionally lower, and large cap growth (IWF, -0.16%) is down, but better off than large cap value (IWD, -0.68%), which hasn't happened often of late. 

In my opinion, the Fed should be weighing the economic risks greater than the inflationary risks, but that's just my opinion.  We'll all find out in time how this plays out.

Happy trading!

Tom