US Money News, Nov. 28–30, 2025: Record Black Friday Spending, Fed Cut Expectations and a Futures Market Shock

From November 28 to 30, 2025, US “money news” has been dominated by three big themes: record-breaking Black Friday spending, growing expectations of a Federal Reserve rate cut in December, and a rare outage that froze global futures trading for hours. Layered on top of that are rising consumer debt worries, a still-fragile post‑shutdown economy and a federal budget strained by higher interest costs.

Here’s what mattered for your wallet and the wider US economy this weekend.

1. Black Friday 2025: Americans Spend Big – With Help From AI and Debt

Online sales hit a record $11.8 billion

US consumers set a new record for online Black Friday spending this year. Adobe Analytics estimates that shoppers spent $11.8 billion online on Black Friday, up 9.1% from 2024, making it the biggest single online shopping day on record. ^[1]

Salesforce data suggests total US online Black Friday spending reached $18 billion, up about 3% year on year, even as shoppers bought fewer items per order because prices were higher. ^[2]

Offline, the picture was solid but less dramatic. Mastercard SpendingPulse data shows overall Black Friday retail sales rose around 4%, with e‑commerce up roughly 10% and in‑store sales up about 1–2% compared with last year. ^[3]

AI shopping tools turbocharge e‑commerce

One of the standout money stories is how quickly artificial intelligence is reshaping how Americans shop:

Adobe reports AI-driven traffic to US retail sites jumped about 805% compared with last year. ^[4]
Retailers’ in‑house chatbots and shopping assistants – like Walmart’s “Sparky” and Amazon’s “Rufus” – helped customers find deals and compare prices, encouraging more online purchases. ^[5]
Salesforce estimates AI agents influenced $14.2 billion in global online sales on Black Friday, about $3 billion of that in the US. ^[6]

For shoppers, AI is acting like a turbocharged personal finance hack: it makes it easier to hunt for discounts and avoid overpaying, even though it also nudges people toward buying more.

Holiday spending set to top $1 trillion – but growth is slowing

The National Retail Federation expects US holiday retail sales (November–December) to surpass $1 trillion for the first time, but growth is forecast to slow to 3.7–4.2%, down from 4.3% last year. ^[7]

That slowdown echoes a broader theme across the weekend’s economic coverage: Americans are still spending, but they’re more price‑sensitive and strategic, stretching dollars amid stubbornly high living costs.

2. The Hidden Cost: Credit Card Debt and “Buy Now, Pay Later”

Debt is rising along with sales

Behind the record spending, multiple reports flag mounting debt stress:

AP notes that credit card balances and delinquencies on short‑term loans are rising, even as shoppers continue to open their wallets. ^[8]
Many households hit by the recent 43‑day federal government shutdown, persistent tariffs and corporate layoffs are turning to deals and discounts out of necessity, not just holiday cheer. ^[9]

In other words: the headline numbers look strong, but a significant share of that spending is happening on thinner financial ice.

“Buy Now, Pay Later” (BNPL) hits record usage – and new risks

“Buy Now, Pay Later” is becoming a defining money story of this holiday season:

Adobe expects Americans to spend over $20 billion online via BNPL plans between November 1 and December 31, up roughly 11% from 2024. ^[10]
Business Insider reports that BNPL use is at record levels this Black Friday and Cyber Monday, especially among Gen Z and millennials. ^[11]
A LendingTree survey cited in that coverage found 41% of BNPL users made at least one late payment over the past year, including many high‑income households. ^[12]

The biggest new twist: FICO is now integrating BNPL data into credit scores, meaning missed BNPL payments can directly hurt consumers’ credit profiles even though on‑time payments typically aren’t rewarded. ^[13]

What this means for your money:
BNPL can smooth out cash flow if used sparingly, but it now behaves more like a credit line from a credit‑score perspective. Stacking multiple BNPL plans on top of high‑interest credit card balances could turn today’s holiday bargains into tomorrow’s lower credit scores and higher borrowing costs.

3. Household Finances: Weak Real Income Growth in a “K‑Shaped” Economy

A fresh analysis from the JPMorgan Chase Institute gives important context for all this spending. Using anonymized bank account data, the institute finds that real income growth (after inflation) for 25–54‑year‑olds is running at only about 1.6%, comparable to the slow recovery following the Great Recession, even though unemployment is much lower now. ^[14]

Key findings:

Bank balances are flat after inflation, suggesting that many households are no longer building up savings – especially after burning through pandemic‑era cash cushions. ^[15]
Roughly half of workers aged 50–54 have seen real earnings fall, once inflation is taken into account. ^[16]
Younger workers aren’t seeing the strong income gains usually associated with promotions and job hopping early in their careers. ^[17]

This creates a K‑shaped economy: higher‑wealth households, buoyed by stock market and home price gains, can keep spending, while lower‑income and older workers feel squeezed and increasingly lean on credit, BNPL and discounts to make ends meet. ^[18]

4. Markets: Stocks Rise, Dollar Slips and Money Rotates to Safer Assets

Wall Street ends November on a high note – mostly

Friday’s short, post‑Thanksgiving session (Nov. 28) saw all three major US stock indexes finish higher, capping a strong week:

The S&P 500 and Dow Jones posted modest gains for November.
The Nasdaq Composite ended the month down about 1.5%, as investors grew nervous about stretched tech and AI valuations. ^[19]
For the week, stocks enjoyed their best Thanksgiving week since 2012, helped by renewed hopes for a Federal Reserve rate cut in December. ^[20]

Yet under the surface, not everyone is doubling down on risk.

Equity funds see outflows, bonds and cash see big inflows

New LSEG Lipper data shows that US equity funds recorded their first weekly outflow in six weeks, with about $4.56 billion pulled in the week to November 26, despite the S&P 500 rising more than 3% over that period. ^[21]

At the same time:

US bond funds attracted roughly $8.6 billion, their eighth straight week of inflows.
Short‑to‑intermediate government and Treasury funds took in about $4.05 billion, the most since late September.
US money market funds – often a parking spot for cautious cash – saw about $25.3 billion of inflows after two weeks of outflows. ^[22]

That rotation suggests many investors are quietly de‑risking, locking in higher yields in bonds and cash while they wait to see how the economy and Fed policy evolve.

US dollar suffers worst week since July as Fed cut bets surge

In currency markets, the US dollar index is on track for its worst weekly performance since July, with a roughly 0.6% decline this week. Traders are increasingly convinced the Fed will cut rates at its December 9–10 meeting:

Fed funds futures now price around 80–87% odds of a quarter‑point cut. ^[23]
The recent 43‑day government shutdown left a backlog of economic data, but the information released since reopening has generally pointed to a softening labor market and slower momentum, reinforcing the case for easing. ^[24]

A weaker dollar is a double‑edged sword: it can help US exporters and boost overseas earnings for multinationals, but it can also keep import prices elevated, feeding into inflation and influencing tariff politics.

5. A Rare Shock: CME Outage Freezes Global Futures for 11 Hours

On Friday, November 28, the usually invisible plumbing of global markets suddenly became front‑page money news.

What happened?

CME Group, the world’s largest futures exchange operator, suffered a data‑center cooling failure in Chicago that halted trading across stock, bond, commodity and currency futures for more than 11 hours. ^[25]
Trading resumed around 13:35 GMT, and the outage hit during a typically thin, post‑holiday session, which helped limit the damage. ^[26]

Market participants described the episode as both lucky and alarming:

Lucky, because volumes are always low in the half‑day after Thanksgiving and many big “roll” trades had already been executed earlier in the week.
Alarming, because it underscored how dependent modern markets are on a handful of data centers and platforms – and how vulnerable they can be when those systems fail. ^[27]

For now, regulators and institutional investors are treating it as a wake‑up call to stress‑test disaster recovery plans, especially as data centers become more strained by AI workloads and ever‑higher trading volumes.

6. Fed Watch and the AI Trade: Markets Brace for December

Looking ahead to early December, Wall Street’s focus is split between AI profitability and Fed policy:

The S&P 500 is up about 16% year‑to‑date, but much of that gain is concentrated in big tech and AI‑linked stocks. ^[28]
A Reuters “Week Ahead” outlook notes increasing investor anxiety over whether massive AI infrastructure spending will translate into earnings quickly enough, especially given recent volatility in names like Nvidia and Alphabet. ^[29]
Bitcoin, often treated as a high‑beta proxy for risk appetite, has dropped below $90,000 from over $125,000 in early October, another sign that some speculative froth is coming off. ^[30]

At the same time, a combination of:

softer labor data,
the lingering economic drag from the shutdown, and
improving inflation trends

has markets leaning toward a December rate cut that could support more broad‑based gains beyond the AI and mega‑cap tech names that have dominated 2025 so far. ^[31]

7. Fiscal Pressure: Deficit Swells and Interest Costs Climb

The federal government’s finances are another key money story in the background of this weekend.

October deficit inflated by shutdown – but interest costs are unmistakably higher

A new Treasury report shows the October 2025 budget deficit hit $284 billion, about 10% higher than October 2024. That figure is distorted by two factors:

The 43‑day government shutdown, and
The shifting of about $105 billion in November benefit payments into October due to calendar quirks. ^[32]

Adjusting for these timing effects, the deficit would have been about $180 billion, roughly 29% lower than October 2024 – an improvement, but still a large monthly shortfall. ^[33]

Other key details:

Government outlays rose 18% year‑on‑year to $689 billion.
Revenues climbed 24% to a record $404 billion, driven partly by record customs duties (~$31.4 billion) from new tariffs, as well as delayed tax filings from California. ^[34]
Treasury interest costs hit $104 billion in October alone, up 27% from a year earlier, reflecting both a larger debt load and a slightly higher average interest rate. ^[35]

Higher interest costs are quickly becoming one of the most important – and least reversible – pieces of the US money story.

Shutdown aftermath and continuing resolution

The federal government reopened on November 12 after the longest shutdown in US history, when President Donald Trump signed a funding package and continuing resolution (CR) that finances the government at FY 2025 levels through January 30, 2026. ^[36]

Treasury has since emphasized that it has “resumed normal operations,” with the CR buying time but not solving underlying fiscal debates over tariffs, spending and the debt ceiling. ^[37]

For markets and the Fed, the shutdown’s legacy is a temporary data blackout and a lingering question: how much lasting damage did the 43‑day interruption do to growth, consumer confidence and tax receipts?

8. What This Weekend’s US Money News Means for You

Putting all of these threads together, the November 28–30 snapshot of US money news tells a nuanced story:

Consumers are still spending aggressively, especially online, and are leveraging AI tools to stretch their budgets – but many are leaning on credit cards and BNPL in ways that could backfire if incomes stay weak or job losses rise.
Real income growth is sluggish, particularly for older workers, reinforcing a two‑speed, K‑shaped economy where wealthier households drive much of the discretionary spending.
Markets are optimistic but cautious: stocks are near highs, yet money is quietly rotating into bonds and cash, and tech/AI valuations are under closer scrutiny.
The Fed is likely to cut rates in December, which could ease borrowing costs over time, although it might not dramatically change day‑to‑day finances in the short run.
Federal finances remain stretched, with higher interest costs and a big – if distorted – deficit underscoring the long‑term challenge of servicing a large national debt in a world of still‑elevated rates.

If you’re a US consumer or investor, the signal beneath the noise is simple: bargains and asset gains are still out there, but debt risks, income stagnation and policy uncertainty are rising in the background. This is a moment to be opportunistic, but not complacent.

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