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Good morning investors!
If this is your first time reading, welcome to The Investor’s Edge — a thriving community of over 26,000 subscribers striving to be better investors with an edge in the market.
Every weekend we publish “The Weekly Wrap-Up” — your ticket to being well informed and staying ahead in the investment game!
This report is designed to help investors of all skill levels break down important stories/topics within the stock market. And best of all, we cut through all of the BS and give you exactly what you need to know in easy to digest, bite sized pieces of content.
Grab your coffee and let’s dive in.
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Market Talk
Another week down, and now there’s only 7 trading days left in 2025. After a rough start to the week, markets rebounded following the CPI report with tech stocks leading the bounce.
3 Stories Moving the Market
These are some of the biggest stories from the second half of the week that had an influence on market action.
November CPI much cooler than expected, but data gaps complicate inflation outlook
U.S. consumer prices increased less than economists expected in November, offering tentative evidence that inflation pressures may be easing across key categories. The delayed release followed a government shutdown that disrupted data collection and eliminated the prior month comparison for policymakers and analysts. Markets reacted immediately as investors reassessed the near term policy outlook amid questions about data completeness across asset classes.
🔑 Key Points
Headline inflation: Annual CPI printed 2.7%, below expectations, reflecting softer price pressures across multiple consumer categories nationwide.
Core inflation: Core CPI rose 2.6% YoY, undershooting forecasts and signaling reduced underlying inflation momentum.
Monthly pace: Both headline and core prices increased 0.2% MoM, undershooting consensus expectations broadly again.
Food and energy: Food prices rose 2.6% YoY while energy increased 4.2%, highlighting uneven inflation pressures.
Data disruption: Government shutdown effects forced reliance on nonsurvey sources, reducing usual historical comparisons within the report.
👀 What You Need to Know
This inflation report carries added uncertainty because missing survey data weakens confidence in trend interpretation. While headline and core readings were cooler, policymakers must judge whether the softness reflects genuine disinflation or statistical distortion. Shelter inflation continued moderating, an important development given its heavy weight within consumer price measures. Market expectations for rate cuts shifted modestly, but Federal Reserve decisions will depend on corroborating data in coming months. Expect volatility around inflation data to persist.
🔐 Edge Takeaway: The 2.7% headline and 2.6% core CPI read as a meaningful downside surprise, but the…upgrade to Edge+ to read the Full Edge Takeaway.
Micron Prints a Monster Quarter as AI Demand Explodes
Micron Technology $MU ( ▲ 6.99% ) delivered a blowout quarter with record revenue, margins, and guidance driven by AI memory demand. The stock was +9% this week.
EPS: $4.78 vs. $3.96 est. (+167% YoY)
Revenue: $13.64B vs. $12.91B est. (+57% YoY)
Cloud strength: Cloud Memory revenue +100% YoY to $5.28B on HBM and AI-driven DRAM demand.
Client rebound: Mobile and Client revenue +63% YoY to $4.26B as pricing and volumes recovered.
Margin leverage: Gross margin expanded to 56.8% non-GAAP (+17 points YoY).
Cash inflection: Free cash flow surged to $3.9B despite $4.5B in quarterly capex.
Guidance: Q2 revenue $18.7B and EPS $8.42, implying further sequential margin expansion.
🔐 Edge Takeaway: Micron’s Q1 confirmed a structural earnings reset driven by AI memory scarcity, with cloud Memory revenue hitting $5.28B, nearly +100% YoY, confirming.…upgrade to Edge+ to read the Full Edge Takeaway.
📚 Edge-ucation: Understanding the Different Types of Margins
Margins measure how much profit a company keeps at each stage of its business, from selling a product to running the full operation. Looking at multiple margins together helps investors understand pricing power, cost structure, and how resilient profits are when conditions change.
Gross margin: Revenue minus cost of goods sold, showing pricing power and production efficiency before overhead and operating costs.
Operating margin: Profit after operating expenses like R and D and SG and A, capturing how efficiently the core business is run.
EBITDA margin: Operating profitability before depreciation, amortization, interest, and taxes, often used to compare capital-intensive companies.
Net profit margin: Final profit after all expenses, interest, and taxes, reflecting what ultimately accrues to shareholders.
Margins matter because different industries optimize different layers of profitability, and margin expansion or compression often drives stock re-ratings long before revenue trends change.
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Nike shares drop 10% as China sales plunge, tariffs hit profits
Nike $NKE ( ▼ 10.54% ) delivered a modest beat, but cautious Q3 guidance led to the stock having the largest single day decline since April. The stock was -13.2% this week.
EPS: $0.53 vs. $0.37 est.
Revenue: $12.43B vs. $12.21B est.
Wholesale growth: Wholesale revenue +8% YoY to $7.5B, led by North America.
Direct pressure: NIKE Direct revenue -8% YoY to $4.6B, with digital down 14%.
China weakness: Greater China revenue -17% to $1.42B, weighing on recovery efforts.
Margins hit: Gross margin declined 300 bps to 40.6% due to higher North America tariffs.
Guidance: Q3 revenue expected down low single digits, gross margin down 175 to 225 bps.
🔐 Edge Takeaway: Nike’s Q2 earnings confirmed that the business remains in the middle of a reset. On the call, management made clear that…upgrade to Edge+ to read the Full Edge Takeaway.
In Other News
In this section, we'll be curating a selection of news headlines we think you'll find interesting. If a topic catches your eye, click the provided links to read more about it.
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Edge+ Posts of the Week
We continue to push out more and more content every week to give investors that edge. Here are the posts Investor’s Edge+ subscribers received this week.
The Edge Report
Mondays are for the investors. Every Monday morning we share exactly what we’re watching in the week ahead, how we’re positioning, and even share a sneak peek into our systems and models. This week we discussed the upcoming nonfarm payroll and CPI reports, as well as earnings from Micron, Nike, and FedEx. See the latest full report here:
Stock Deep Dive - ServiceNow
Our Deep Dive focused on ServiceNow this week. The stock is down 35% this year, has the price come down enough to justify the valuation? Those growth projections sure are interesting… See our thoughts on the company, our valuation models, price targets for 2026, and full analysis with the help of the Edge Scoring System. You can see the full deep dive here:
The Week Ahead
Next week is Christmas and it will be extremely quiet in terms of earnings and economic reports.
Earnings Reports
There are no stocks that we cover expected to report earnings next week, and there are actually no stocks reporting at all over the next 2 weeks. Here is the full calendar of scheduled earnings releases over the next month:
Source: Earnings Whispers
Economic Reports
Next week is also quiet on the economic front, with only the GDP report and initial jobless claims on the calendar.
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Thank you for reading this edition of the Weekly Wrap-Up. Have a great weekend!
Until next time investors!
Mark & Chris
The Investor’s Edge
Disclosure
This is not investing advice. It is very important that you do your own research and make investments based on your own personal circumstances, preferences, goals and risk tolerance.
