3 Things You Need to Know This Week | Global PMIs, US Jobs Data, Consumer Sentiment (Dec. 1, 2025)

Transcript

Jessica Breiland:
Hello, and welcome to 3 Things You Need to Know This Week—our regular series designed to help you sift through the noise across financial media and understand what really matters for markets. To stay up-to-date with our latest market insights, subscribe to our YouTube channel or visit Fisherinvestments.com. And with that, here are 3 things you need to know this week.

First, final November global PMIs.

This week, we’ll get an updated look at global economic activity with S&P Global releasing final November Purchasing Managers’ Indexes, or PMIs, for the US, UK, eurozone and Japan. PMIs are economic indicators sourced from monthly surveys sent to private-sector businesses. They can provide timely snapshots of business activity and offer helpful context for investors.

What does recent PMI data tell us? Preliminary November composite PMIs, which combine manufacturing and services, remained expansionary for the US, UK, eurozone and Japan. More broadly, the big picture remains encouraging: the overall global composite PMI, which collects data across 40 countries, has also stayed expansionary—a positive backdrop indicating global economic resilience. Importantly, it’s not the absolute level of economic activity that matters for markets, but rather how that activity compares to the expectations already priced into the market.

Economic data isn’t perfect, there are pockets of weakness—as always. However, whether you look at the US, the eurozone or the global economy as a whole, economic fundamentals have largely been surprising to the upside this year. As we record, with global stocks up around 18% year to date, equities have proven what we always say: That to support rising stocks, bull markets don’t require economic data to be perfect or even great; reality just needs to prove better than what investors expected.

Next, US jobs.

This week, some November jobs data will be released, although the recently ended US government shutdown will continue to cause delays, with the highly watched nonfarm payrolls and unemployment numbers slotted to come out in mid-December, two weeks behind their usual schedule. One report that will be released this week is the Challenger Job-Cuts report. In October, Challenger reported over 153,000 jobs cut—triple 2024’s reading for the same month and the highest number of October layoffs in 22 years. However, monthly layoffs were higher in February and March this year, but the economy continued to expand. Perhaps this is because official nonfarm payrolls kept rising those months as employers added more jobs on net than where they cut.

With October government jobs figures still delayed, there are no official hiring figures to contrast against announced layoffs. However, payroll processor ADP’s data showed a net positive gain of 42,000 jobs in October—suggesting employers again added more than they cut for the month. Now, we sympathize with those who have been affected by layoffs. However, as investors, it’s important to take a step back and put data into context. Jobless claims remain historically low according to state-level data. If the economy were actually in recession, this would be one of the first labor-market indicators to spike, even though it’s backward-looking.

Announced layoffs are up this year, but workers cut don’t seem to be filing for claims to any great degree so far. Ultimately, while soft spots remain, we see few signs that the labor market is as bleak as headlines suggest.

Finally, US consumer sentiment.

This week, we’ll get the University of Michigan’s preliminary US consumer confidence data for December. This consumer sentiment index has been a staple for decades, but recent data suggest this gauge has been infected with partisan politics for years—which limits its usefulness.

The University of Michigan consumer confidence survey has been falling for much of the year and remains at some of the lowest levels on record. Notably, there is a significant political skew in the survey results—illustrating how the political party investors favor can materially impact your views on how the economy is doing. Economic expectations among Republican respondents plunged after Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden were elected president, while Democratic respondents felt much more confident—yet the opposite pattern unfolded following President Donald Trump’s election in 2016 and 2024. Notably, during the last two presidential terms, supporters of both major US political parties have reflected lower highs and lower lows in their range of economic expectations—despite economic reality returning to historical normalcy following the pandemic bust and boom.

While we caution that political bias can lead investors to unwise decision making, which depresses investor sentiment, this lowers the economic reality bar which must be surpassed to deliver positive surprise, which, if all else equal, supports a continued bull market.

And that’s it for this episode of 3 Things You Need to Know This Week!

For more of our thoughts on markets, check out This Week in Review released every Friday. You can also visit fisherinvestments.com. Thanks for tuning in, and don’t forget to hit like and subscribe.