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By Alden Bentley

NEW YORK, Nov 25 (Reuters) -

Making sense of the forces driving global markets

By Alden Bentley, Editor in Charge, Americas Finance and

Markets

Jamie is enjoying some well-deserved time off, but the Reuters

markets team will still keep you up to date on what animated

markets today. I'd love to hear from you so please feel free to

reach out at

Today's Key Market Moves

* On Wall Street the benchmark S&P 500 and tech-heavy

Nasdaq were up about 0.8% and 0.5%, respectively. The

Dow was 1.4% higher

* U.S. Treasury yields fell

* The dollar fell against the euro and the Japanese

yen

* New York crude oil futures rose almost 1.5%

* Gold bullion eased 0.15%

Today's Key Reads

Wall Street advances as Federal Reserve rate cut bets gather

momentum

Alphabet on pace to hit $4 trillion market value as AI gains

momentum

US retail sales growth slows in September; energy prices

boost producer inflation

US consumer confidence deteriorates in November

Good chance Trump may unveil Fed pick by Christmas, Bessent

says

Fed optimism, Thanksgiving week

Wall Street gained conviction that plodding growth would cement

a third Federal Reserve easing this year, keeping buyers in

control for the third straight session.

Several economic indicators contributed to a

bad-news-is-good-news scenario that helped convert an overnight

pullback into another solid rally, even as Thursday's

Thanksgiving holiday threatened to drain market liquidity and

volume.

All three major stock indexes strengthened. The blue-chip

Dow took the lead while sagging shares of artificial

intelligence front-runner Nvidia ( NVDA ) limited the Nasdaq's

advance even as Google parent Alphabet rose to a

record high, closing in on becoming the fourth company to reach

$4 trillion in market capitalization. Meta was the biggest boost

to the S&P 500 after The Information reported it was in talks

with Google to spend billions on its chips for data centers.

U.S. retail sales increased a less-than-expected 0.2% in

September, suggesting consumer fatigue amid higher prices due to

tariffs going into the shutdown that delayed government reports

for that month and the next. Meanwhile, labor market worries

pushed down the Conference Board's consumer confidence index to

88.7 this month, the lowest level since April. The Labor

Department also reported that its September Producer Price Index

rebounded 0.3%, after a slight drop in August, due to higher

energy and food costs.

Following comments from three Fed officials since Friday,

futures traders stepped up bets that the central bank would cut

its fed funds target range another 25 basis points to 3.50% to

3.75% after its December 9-10 meeting, putting the probability

at 76% -- not as certain as a couple of weeks ago, when they

priced in near certainty, but more confident than during last

week's shakeout. Treasury yields fell on the underwhelming data

and prospects for still more monetary policy accommodation,

which also weighed on the dollar.

What could move markets tomorrow?

* US September Durable Goods Orders

Opinions expressed are those of the author. They do not reflect

the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is

committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

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