The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index rose 0.8 points in November to 99.0 and remained above its 52-year average of 98. “Although optimism increased, small business owners are still frustrated by the lack of qualified workers,” said NFIB Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg. “Despite this, more firms still plan to create new jobs in the near future.”

President Trump announced a $12 billion aid package for American farmers. He said the money would come from the hundreds of billions of dollars in tariff revenue the US has collected this year.

President Trump said that he authorized Nvidia to sell its powerful H200 artificial-intelligence chip in China in exchange for taking 25% of the revenue — a major win for the US chipmaker following weeks of negotiations. Clearing the H200 for sale in China gives Nvidia and its CEO, Jensen Huang, a major boost after Huang visited Capitol Hill and personally met with Trump.

US consumer inflation expectations in November remained unchanged at the one-year-ahead horizon at 3.2%, according to a New York Fed survey. Meanwhile, “perceptions about households’ current financial situations deteriorated notably,” the bank said.

The private credit market is increasingly resembling the public debt market as rapid growth blurs the differences between the two. Morgan Stanley reports that the value of private credit has increased to rouhgly $3 trillion in early 2025, up from $2 trillion in 2020.

Markets are expecting another rate hike cut by the Federal Reserve at tomorrow’s policy meeting, reports TMC Research, a unit of The Milwaukee Company, a wealth manager. Recent warning signs for near-term interest rates has softened lately, based on several key yields that are closely watched for estimating the Fed’s policy decisions. The bias has turned dovish again, following a brief but fleeting hawkish run in late-November.

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