It’s Starting to Feel Like a Rate Cut Season…
A wave of economic data hit the wires last week — some delayed by the government shutdown, some right on schedule — and investors liked what they saw. With the Federal Reserve set to meet this week, markets grew hopeful that a long-awaited rate cut might finally be on the table. Here’s a quick rundown of the numbers the Fed is weighing right now.
Inflation moved in line with forecasts. The latest Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) report — one of the Fed’s preferred inflation gauges — showed headline inflation ticking up from 2.7% to 2.8% year over year in September. Core inflation, which strips out food and energy, eased slightly from 2.9% to 2.8%.
Consumer spending rose, mostly due to higher prices. According to Barron’s, Americans continued to spend cautiously, directing more of their budgets toward essentials like gas, utilities, housing, and healthcare. Discretionary purchases — everything from recreation to non-essential goods — actually dipped from the prior month.
Holiday shopping kicked off with momentum. Fast-forward to November: Americans loosened their wallets for Thanksgiving week. One analytics firm reported consumers spent $79.6 billion online — a 5% jump from last year — with more than half of shoppers choosing to buy primarily through digital channels, according to research cited by Bloomberg.
Consumer confidence edged up.The University of Michigan’s sentiment index is still near historic lows, but December brought a modest improvement.
By week’s end, major U.S. stock indices finished higher, with the S&P 500 closing just shy of a record. Treasury yields, meanwhile, drifted upward.
Data as of 11/28/25 | 1-Week | Y-T-D | 1-Year | 3-Year | 5-Year | 10-Year |
Standard & Poor’s 500 Index | 0.3% | 16.8% | 13.1% | 19.8% | 13.2% | 12.7% |
Dow Jones Global ex-U.S. Index | 1.0 | 25.8 | 21.2 | 12.7 | 5.2 | 5.4 |
10-year Treasury Note (yield only) | 4.1 | N/A | 4.2 | 3.6 | 0.9 | 2.2 |
Gold (per ounce) | -0.3 | 60.7 | 60.2 | 33.6 | 17.9 | 14.7 |
Bloomberg Commodity Index | 1.5 | 13.4 | 15.0 | 0.3 | 8.7 | 3.5 |
S&P 500, Dow Jones Global ex-US, Gold, and Bloomberg Commodity Index returns exclude reinvested dividends (gold does not pay a dividend) and the three-, five-, and 10-year returns are annualized; and the 10-year Treasury Note is simply the yield at the close of the day on each of the historical time periods. Sources: Yahoo! Finance; MarketWatch; djindexes.com; U.S. Treasury; London Bullion Market Association. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Indices are unmanaged and cannot be invested in directly. N/A means not applicable.
Why Is Language Always Evolving?
Across the globe, more than 7,000 languages are spoken — yet nearly half of the world’s population communicates using just 20 of them. And like the societies that speak them, languages constantly shift and adapt. As Ethnologue notes, they’re “living and dynamic,” shaped by culture, technology, and everyday life.
Dictionaries try to capture this evolution, and each year, many highlight a “Word of the Year” (WOTY) that reflects what’s influencing our conversations. For 2025, here’s what stood out:
Parasocial — Cambridge Dictionary. Searches surged as AI-powered chatbots became more personal and interactive. The term describes one-sided emotional connections people form with celebrities, fictional characters, or even AI systems.
Rage bait — Oxford Dictionary. Selected through public voting, its usage tripled in 2025. It refers to online content engineered to provoke outrage and drive engagement.
AI slop — Macquarie Dictionary. Editors chose this term to describe low-quality, error-filled AI-generated content. As one editor put it, we’ve moved from being “search engineers” to becoming “prompt engineers” just to navigate the flood of AI output.
67 (six-seven) — Dictionary.com.A viral Gen Alpha slang term with intentionally blurry meaning — often implying “so-so” — and known for its playful, almost nonsensical vibe.
Looking ahead, it will be fascinating to see how language shifts in places like Australia, which introduced a new rule on December 10, 2025, requiring users to be at least 16 years old to hold a social media account. Given how quickly digital spaces can propel slang and vocabulary across the world, the impact could be significant.
As one commentary put it, “Social media enables new words, phrases, and expressions to go viral in a matter of hours… language now responds to grassroots innovation and mass participation, especially among youth cultures and online communities.”
Weekly Focus – Think About It
“Language is always changing. It has to; otherwise it wouldn’t work.”
— John McWhorter