November has picked up where October left off (check out Friday’s note for a quick October recap). It was another Merger Monday with >$70B of announced M&A activity adding to a stellar pickup in activity since Q3, putting 2025 on track to be the second-best year since 2021 according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The AI news flow also continued with >$50B of commitments announced for cloud services, GPUs and other related equipment. The largest hit the tape just before the bell with OpenAI announcing a $38B web services deal with Amazon. This helped futures extend to the upside but just like last week it feels like the AI trade is sucking all of the air out of the proverbial room. The S&P 500 opened higher driven by the usual suspects but the broader tape came under pressure after the open. Yields have moved slightly higher despite some dovish Fed commentary and ISM manufacturing coming in slightly below expectations. This seems to be weighing on some of the more speculative pockets of the market including crypto and thematic favorites like quantum computing, SMR’s and rare earths. However, the broader tape has recouped a good portion of the morning selloff.

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