PickAlpha Morning Report | 2025-11-29 — 5 material moves and analysis
• Ukrainian drones disabled two tankers — $XLE, $XOP • CME Globex halted over 11 hours disrupting price discovery — $CME, $NDAQ • Black Friday online sales hit 11.8B up 9% — $AMZN, $WMT • Etc.
Scope: filtered material news only (passed significance tests).
Method: in-house deep network reasoning + causal graphs → asset mapping → actions.
Authorship: compiled from model outputs; edited & written by senior buy-side researchers.
PickAlpha - Macro Events:
2025-11-29 Events Analysis -
Ukraine naval drones hit two Russian ‘shadow fleet’ tankers and force Caspian Pipeline Consortium to halt Black Sea oil terminal operations, disrupting more than 1% of global crude supply | $CL=F, $BZ=F, $XLE, $XOP, $E, $IMO
Immediacy: Overnight · Impact: bullish · Category: Commodities/Supply · Materiality: A (★★★, 94)
Overnight, Ukrainian security officials said naval drones struck two sanctioned tankers, the Kairos and the Virat, in the Black Sea as they sailed empty toward Novorossiysk, a key Russian oil export hub. Video showed drones approaching, followed by explosions and fires, with Kyiv stating both tankers suffered critical damage and are effectively out of service. Turkey’s transport ministry reported the 274-metre Kairos exploded and caught fire on Friday en route from Egypt to Russia, with crew evacuated, while the Virat was hit about 35 nautical miles offshore and then targeted again on Saturday, leaving it damaged but stable. Separately, the Caspian Pipeline Consortium halted operations at its Black Sea terminal after a mooring was significantly damaged in a Ukrainian drone attack, temporarily disrupting more than 1% of global crude flows and raising questions over Black Sea loading programs and insurance for sanctioned cargoes.
Action — BUY ON DIPS: Near-term supply disruption lifts crude risk premium and supports energy beta
A sudden outage affecting over 1% of global seaborne crude tightens Black Sea export throughput, directly supporting risk premia in Brent and WTI futures (CL=F, BZ=F). Reduced flows and higher operational risk raise forward price expectations and cash flow visibility for upstream producers and diversified energy equities, benefitting XLE, XOP and integrated names with limited Black Sea exposure. Conversely, insurers and charterers face higher costs and constraints around sanctioned tankers, tempering benefits for shipping exposed to Russian routes. With trend skewed UP > DOWN, upside stems from prolonged CPC terminal repairs or continued drone activity that keep volumes offline and harden insurance terms; downside is a rapid technical fix and cargo rerouting. A concrete trigger would be confirmation that CPC outages extend beyond an initial short maintenance window.
Source: Reuters • Time: 2025-11-29T10:14:00-05:00
U.S. dollar index heads for largest weekly drop since July as Fed funds futures price an 87% chance of a December rate cut, pressuring the greenback against yen, euro and sterling | $DXY, $UUP, $FXE, $FXB, $FXY, $GLD, $ZN=F
Immediacy: Last Day · Impact: bearish · Category: Macro/Rates/FX · Materiality: B (★★, 86)
The U.S. dollar index (DXY) was last around 99.44, down roughly 0.61% on the week and heading for its worst weekly performance since July 21 as traders added to bets that the Federal Reserve will cut rates at its December 9–10 meeting. Fed funds futures now price an 87% probability of a 25bp move, up from about 71% a week earlier, after a compressed run of post-shutdown data signalled a cooling labour market and softer activity, despite Fed officials’ ongoing concern over elevated inflation. The yen strengthened to about 156.1 per dollar ahead of comments from BOJ Governor Ueda and a December BOJ meeting where a hike is seen as possible, while the euro traded near $1.16 and sterling around $1.32, with GBP on track for its best week since early August after a less negative UK budget. In Japan, Prime Minister Takaichi approved a largely debt-financed supplementary budget of roughly $117 billion, raising the stakes for any BOJ tolerance of higher domestic yields and narrower U.S.–Japan rate differentials. The Canadian dollar firmed to near C$1.398 per U.S. dollar after Q3 GDP grew at a 2.6% annualised pace, reinforcing a broad dollar pullback that is resetting risk-reward across UUP, FXE, FXB, FXY, GLD and EM FX.
Action — BUY ON DIPS: Elevated 87% pricing for a December Fed cut and softer post-shutdown data increases downside pressure on the dollar; consider buying gold and commodity/EM-linked FX on pullbacks.
Higher Fed funds futures-implied odds of a December cut compress expected U.S. short rates and erode the U.S. yield premium, pressuring DXY and supporting alternative stores of value and carry-sensitive FX. If BOJ signals tolerance for higher Japanese yields against a $117 billion fiscal push, U.S.–Japan rate differentials should narrow further, amplifying downside in USD/JPY and favouring FXY over UUP. A softer dollar also tends to underpin gold (GLD), EM FX and commodity-linked currencies, and it marginally improves translated revenues for U.S. multinationals. With trend assessment skewed UP < DOWN for the dollar, the near-term balance tilts toward further DXY weakness unless incoming data or hawkish Fed rhetoric knocks back December cut odds. A single concrete trigger would be a downside surprise in the next U.S. payrolls print that keeps cut probability near or above 87%, which would likely extend dollar softness and validate buying GLD and high-quality EM/commodity FX on pullbacks while keeping tight risk controls around a potential data-driven dollar rebound.
Source: Reuters • Time: 2025-11-28T14:53:00-05:00
U.S. Black Friday online spending hits record $11.8 billion, up 9.1% year-on-year, with Adobe projecting Cyber Monday e-commerce sales of $14.2 billion | $AMZN, $WMT, $TGT, $COST, $SHOP, $ETSY, $XLY, $IBUY
Immediacy: Overnight · Impact: bullish · Category: Macro/Rates/FX · Materiality: B (★★, 88)
Adobe Analytics reported that U.S. consumers spent a record $11.8 billion online on Black Friday, up 9.1% year-on-year, based on tracking more than 1 trillion retail site visits, signalling robust digital demand despite a soft labour market and inflation concerns and feeding into stronger Q4 revenue expectations for e-commerce platforms and omnichannel retailers. Adobe forecasts online spending of $5.5 billion on Saturday and $5.9 billion on Sunday, with Cyber Monday projected at $14.2 billion, up 6.3%, reinforcing the shift of promotional intensity and shopper engagement into digital channels. Salesforce separately estimated roughly $18 billion in total Black Friday spending across channels, up 3%, with luxury apparel and accessories outperforming but fewer items per order, indicating price-led rather than volume-led nominal growth. On-the-ground commentary highlighted relatively subdued physical store traffic as consumers cited overspending fears and macro uncertainty, underscoring the rising importance of logistics, fulfilment and digital merchandising for margin defence at large retailers.
Action — BUY ON DIPS: Buy on dips for large e-commerce and omnichannel retailers given record $11.8bn Black Friday and $14.2bn Cyber Monday projection; monitor basket size, store traffic and margin commentary for downside risks.
Stronger online sales volume and traffic, anchored by the $11.8 billion Black Friday print and $14.2 billion Cyber Monday projection, directly support near-term revenue and operating leverage for AMZN, SHOP, WMT, TGT, COST and broader e-commerce proxies such as XLY and IBUY. However, Salesforce’s evidence of fewer items per order suggests price mix is doing more work than unit growth, raising questions about the durability of demand once promotional intensity fades and limiting medium-term margin expansion. On balance, upside from better-than-feared holiday revenue and potential positive guidance revisions outweighs downside from weaker store traffic and mix risk. A concrete trigger would be Cyber Monday actuals meeting or beating Adobe’s $14.2 billion forecast, paired with early December updates from key retailers confirming stable conversion and manageable discounting pressure.
Source: Reuters • Time: 2025-11-29T09:11:00-05:00
PickAlpha - Company News:
2025-11-29 News Analysis:
Global futures reopen after CME Group cooling failure triggers one of its longest multi-asset outages in years, halting trading in key stock, bond, FX and commodity contracts for over 11 hours | $CME, $NDAQ, $ICE, $CL=F, $NQ=F, $ZN=F, $SPY, $QQQ
Immediacy: Overnight · Impact: mixed · Category: EventRisk · Materiality: A (★★★, 92)
CME Group suffered one of its longest multi-asset outages in years on Friday after a cooling failure at CyrusOne’s Chicago-area data centres disrupted its Globex and EBS platforms, halting trading in benchmark futures across equities, rates, foreign exchange, energy and commodities for more than 11 hours, with markets largely reopening around 13:35 GMT (08:35 ET). The disruption froze trading in major currency pairs and contracts linked to West Texas Intermediate crude, the Nasdaq 100, Japan’s Nikkei, palm oil and gold, leaving brokers and dealers unable to quote or close positions and effectively without exchange price discovery for key hedging instruments. The incident hit during a thin, shortened post-Thanksgiving U.S. session and at month-end rebalancing, limiting realized volatility but forcing traders to “fly blind” in core risk-management products. CME, which averages 26.3 million derivatives contracts per day and is the world’s largest exchange operator by market value, said the issue stemmed from CyrusOne cooling problems, while the CFTC and SEC reported they were monitoring events; CME shares traded about 0.4% higher premarket after systems recovered.
Action — CAUTIOUSLY OBSERVE: Wait for clarity on remediation, regulation, and post-outage volumes
The outage crystallizes operational-risk premia for exchange operators such as CME, NDAQ and ICE, as data-centre redundancy and vendor failover move from theoretical to evidenced risk. A prolonged or repeated disruption would depress fee-bearing matched volumes, undermine confidence in futures-based hedging, and could prompt regulatory probes, fines or client migration, pressuring earnings multiples and related ETFs such as SPY and QQQ through higher perceived plumbing risk. Conversely, swift, transparent remediation by CME and CyrusOne, successful redundancy and failover testing, and a light-touch regulatory posture would support a quick normalization in liquidity and price discovery for benchmark futures like CL=F, NQ=F and ZN=F, containing valuation damage. With upside and downside roughly balanced, the key near-term trigger is granular disclosure from CME and regulators on root cause, mandated fixes and results of stress-tested resilience; confirmation that post-reopening volumes and spreads have normalized would argue against a durable de-rating of exchange equities.
Source: Reuters • Time: 2025-11-29T03:48:00-05:00
Airbus tells airlines A320 recall hardware-fix subset is smaller than feared, with most of about 6,000 affected jets likely needing only faster software repairs | $EADSY, $RTX, $AAL, $DAL, $UAL, $JBLU, $JETS
Immediacy: Overnight · Impact: mixed · Category: EventRisk · Materiality: B (★★, 80)
Industry sources indicate Airbus has told airlines that the most onerous element of the A320-family recall will hit fewer aircraft than feared, with only a subset of the roughly 6,000 covered jets now expected to need time-consuming hardware modifications versus an earlier estimate of about 1,000 planes. Carriers such as All Nippon Airways have already grounded certain A320-series aircraft and cancelled flights, with long queues reported at Tokyo Haneda as airlines juggle fleet assignments, substitute aircraft and crews, and adjust capacity on short notice. For most affected jets, remediation should occur via faster software updates within shorter maintenance windows, limiting downtime and revenue loss, while the smaller hardware cohort will face longer out-of-service periods, higher direct costs and potentially more cancellations or wet leases. For Airbus and engine-maker partners including RTX’s Pratt & Whitney, the revised impact is a relative positive versus worst-case scenarios of a much larger hardware pool, but still implies elevated warranty, logistics and customer-support expense and some ongoing operational strain for major A320 operators and benchmarks such as AAL, DAL, UAL, JBLU and JETS.
Action — CAUTIOUSLY OBSERVE: Smaller hardware cohort trims tail risk but recall costs and disruption path remain uncertain.
The key swing variable is the size of the hardware-change population: a smaller cohort plus short software downtime compress incremental warranty and disruption costs for Airbus and RTX, limits structural narrow-body capacity tightness, and supports a quicker normalization of schedules and cash flows at U.S. A320 operators. Conversely, any upward revision in hardware-count or longer-than-expected modification times would extend groundings, force more cancellations or wet leases, and pressure airline earnings and supplier margins. Given mixed risk-reward and an UP ~ DOWN trend assessment, the balance of upside from relief on tail scenarios versus downside from cost and operational noise is currently even for EADSY, RTX and A320-heavy carriers. A concrete trigger to watch is the next formal update from Airbus or regulators quantifying the final hardware-affected fleet and expected turnaround times; confirmation of a clearly sub-1,000 aircraft hardware cohort would support a modestly more constructive stance on EADSY, RTX and the U.S. legacy airlines.
Source: Reuters • Time: 2025-11-29T05:33:00-05:00
Informational only; not investment advice. Sources deemed reliable.