Stocks

The global equity story this month was a tale of two narratives: infrastructure giants with clear AI monetization paths versus platforms where the return on massive capex remains uncertain.

NVIDIA continues to dominate as the world's most valuable company at roughly $4.3 trillion, though investors remain watchful following the DeepSeek shock earlier this year that briefly wiped $600 billion from its valuation. Apple and Microsoft—both now members of the $4 trillion club—traded near record highs as iPhone 17 demand exceeded expectations and Azure cloud growth reaccelerated. Amazon's stock surged 11% after raising its 2025 capex forecast to $125 billion, with AWS posting its strongest growth since 2022 and investors cheering a clear path to AI revenue.

Yet the advance was far from uniform. Meta plunged 11% despite beating estimates, as investors balked at spiraling infrastructure costs that could reach $72 billion this year without a clear near-term revenue story to match. Tesla gained about 10% on renewed AI enthusiasm, even as European sales collapsed nearly 50% year-over-year and its core EV business continues to lose share to rivals like BYD. With a P/E north of 280 and Musk's newly approved $1 trillion compensation package tying his fortunes to extreme growth, the stock increasingly trades as a high-risk bet on robotaxis and humanoid robots rather than the automaker it still is.

Last updated: December 01, 2025