Dec 19 Chartstopper: Key Economic Data Review

James Sterling December 19, 2025 1 min read

Weekly Chartstopper: December 19, 2025

Published on December 19, 2025 — 04:40 pm EST. Written by Michael Normyle.

This Week

This week brought several significant economic data releases, though each carried substantial caveats and qualifications that investors should carefully consider. Artificial intelligence expenditures continued to capture substantial market attention as well.

The U.S. economy experienced a net loss of 105,000 jobs in October, followed by a gain of 64,000 jobs in November.
The Department of Government Efficiency’s deferred resignations significantly impacted these figures, as they compensated workers through September, resulting in a substantial 162,000-job drop in federal employment categories.
The unemployment rate climbed higher than anticipated, reaching 4.6% in November compared to 4.4% in September.
This increase appears largely driven by the government shutdown, with approximately 75% of the rise attributed to temporary layoffs, primarily affecting furloughed federal government employees.
Retail sales remained essentially flat during October.
Automobile spending dropped 1.6% month-over-month, influenced by the expiration of the electric vehicle tax credit in September that had previously accelerated purchases. Additionally, declining gasoline prices led to a 0.8% reduction in expenditures at gas stations.
Overall CPI inflation eased to 2.7% year-over-year in November, down from 3.0% in September.
However, two key issues complicate this data: The Bureau of Labor Statistics presumed housing costs stayed flat in October, which lowered one of the largest components in the CPI basket. Furthermore, data collection commenced on November 14 amid the government shutdown, potentially incorporating early holiday discounts that artificially suppressed price readings.

Over the course of the week, the Nasdaq-100 index advanced by 1% (represented by the blue line), while 10-year Treasury yields dipped slightly to 4.15% (black line).