SOTS 2nd Hour: Mohamed El-Erian's Market Picture, Moody's Chief Economist, & Evercore's Top Tech Picks 11/26/25

David Faber (0:00)

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Sara Eisen (0:13)

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Sara Eisen (0:51)

Good Wednesday morning, and welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Sara Eisen with Carl Quintanilla and David Faber. We are live as always from Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. Today, Allianz Chief Economic Advisor, Mohamed El-Erian, will be with us with a warning about the market's fast-changing expectations around the Fed. Plus, it's the Stock Story of the Month, Alphabet hitting record levels this week, even as NVIDIA says, it's a generation ahead of competition. Longtime tech analyst, Mark Mahaney, joins us to weigh in. And in a key week for spending on travel and gifts, Moody's Analytics Chief Economist, Mark Zandi, tells us why Americans are facing an affordability crisis and what can be done about it. I do, though, have some good news on the macroeconomic front. Yes, we're catching up with all the data, but the most sort of real time that we're getting is jobless claims, which is the amount of jobless unemployment claims that Americans file from last week. And actually, we had good news there, which was it was lower than expected and actually matched the lowest level since February. 216,000 jobless claims filed in the week of November 22nd, better than the 225 expected. So four week moving averages ticks down if you want to smooth it over. It continues to be the low hiring, low firing economic environment. And yes, there's been a lot of angst around the labor market lately with some of the alternative data, the ADP data that we've been tracking sort of on weekly job losses. But jobless claims as filed by the states of Americans filing for those benefits continues to paint a picture of lack of layoffs. And that's it just continues with this mixed picture that we are getting on the economy. Some good signs, some not so good.

Carl Quintanilla (2:30)

I mean, continuing claims are still near a four year high. Challenger layoffs are up 60% year on year. I'm not sure how we can call that a no fire environment.

Sara Eisen (2:40)

No, I mean, it's mixed. There are mixed reports on it. Challenger, first of all, has always tended to be a little negative, but yes, I agree October was really bad in terms of those layoff notices.

It's not showing up in the weekly unemployment claims in terms of any kind of elevated number of layoffs there. I think that it jives with what we're hearing from companies, which is if you are providing what consumers want right now, then you're selling it at full price. Did you hear what Urban Outfitters said? Yes, they said customers are looking for deals, but they also said that when they have the right assortment in merchandise, they're doing pretty well. November traffic and sales remain robust. We have observed a slight shift in consumers behavior. We believe customers were waiting a bit longer this year to make their purchases until seasonal promotions began. So again, the deal, the choice, the priorities, but they're still buying. And Urban has discounted less than it has in previous years. And that's one thing that's actually helping the company. This is a stock that's up like, look, 90% over the last year. And it's not the only one. If you look at Tapestry, if you look at Ralph Lauren, some of these retail stocks have been doing very well. It doesn't happen when you have a weak consumer environment. It does happen when you have the upper income doing better. And when you are really nailing it, when it comes to what consumers want. It's not universal. The restaurant stocks are telling a completely different picture, which is weaker spending pretty much across the board. Just look at some of the index here, or some of the names in this group. It's not a rising tide lifting all boats and consumer discretionary right now.

Carl Quintanilla (4:12)

No, and if you look at retail sales, inflation adjusted last month was lower last month than it was in September of 2001