US stocks made small gains on Friday as a holiday-shortened week and volatile month drew to a close. The Dow Jones Industrial Average led the market higher, gaining around 0.5%, with the Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 rising by roughly 4%. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange restored trading operations after a long outage disrupted live trading in futures and options. Stocks rebounded sharply this week as traders bet on a Federal Reserve rate cut in December. Wall Street forecasts for 2026 see the S&P 500 hitting 8,000, while markets closed early on Friday at 1 p.m. ET. Gold futures neared $4,200 on hopes of a Fed rate cut.

AI data centers’ power demand is driving up electricity prices and crushing aluminum smelters. Alphabet outperformed the tech sector for November, while gold futures rose above $4,200 on hopes of a Fed rate cut. US equity funds saw their first weekly outflow in 6 weeks, and Wall Street banks expect oil prices to fall in 2026. Stock reactions to Q3 earnings have been more severe than usual, and seasonal hiring offers little reprieve for labor market woes. Stocks opened with a muted gain to close out the holiday week, and CME Group restarted trading after an outage caused markets to go dark. Premarket trending tickers include Oracle, Alphabet, and Strategy, while gold edges toward a fourth straight monthly win as rate-cut hopes bloom. Commodities trading was halted as a data center issue paused CME futures, and oil saw its largest single-month drop in over two years.

Read more at Yahoo Finance: Nasdaq, S&P 500, Dow rise toward a 5th straight day of gains to cap a rocky month