Market insights, November 2025
Broadly speaking, November was a positive month for both domestic and international investments.
For the all the bluster and bust-ups, as well as the tariffs and turbulence, 2025 may yet go down in history as being a reasonable year for investors.
Or in other words, barring any major upsets in December, 2025 is unlikely to be as bad as some feared when ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs roiled markets in early Q2.
Despite tepid growth prospects in many key economies, equity markets are currently running hot in the US and China, with the latter remerging on investor radars after a period of unpopularity.
Similarly, bond markets have held up well so far this year. The much-watched Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index, for example, has returned about 6.7% year-to-date. Assuming that performance is maintained to year-end, the index is heading towards its best returns since 2020[1].
From jitters to big hitters
With regards to November, the month was dominated by tech-related news flow.
There were jitters in equity markets early in the month but normality, at least as far as 2025 is concerned, was quickly restored. Bumper revenues reported by Nvidia, which is seen as an informal bellwether for the wider AI theme, allayed market nerves that the AI story was losing momentum.
That said, it wasn’t all plain sailing for the tech powerhouse. Towards the end of the month, the company saw its market value dip by -12.59% in US dollar terms[2], amid signs that Google was close to matching, if not over-taking, key elements of its AI business. Some analysts likened the stock dip to events earlier in the year when DeepSeek, a previously little-known Chinese AI company, emerged as a credible alternative to Nvidia’s much vaulted capabilities.
Overall, and despite growing chatter about a potential market bubble, US-listed tech stocks remain in rude health. Towards the end of the month, they scored their biggest daily gain in 6 months[3].
A pre-Christmas gift from the RBNZ
At home, the final MPC session of the year saw New Zealand’s OCR fall to 2.25%.
By the time the MPC reconvenes in February 2026, the new Governor will have assumed her role, and it should be clearer whether earlier rate cuts are beginning to achieve their objectives.
New Zealand’s economy remains in a fragile state but does appear to have finally turned a corner. As the post-MPC media statement stated: “The economic recovery is at an early stage, and the inflation outlook provides scope to place more emphasis on avoiding unnecessary volatility in output and employment. With this context, retention of the easing in overall monetary conditions delivered to date would support an enduring recovery in economic activity[4].”
From an asset class perspective, the path to lower rates proved catalytic across the month. The NZX50 reached a record high in November before paring back slightly. The turnaround ran parallel with NZ business confidence reaching an 11-year high[5].
Meanwhile on the political front, the National Party drew its first pre-election policy line in the sand, following Labour’s CGT announcement last month. The pledge to increase government contributions to KiwiSaver was a punchy early move in a race that is expected to build momentum in the months ahead.
COP30: A Brazilian sweat fest
From falling borrowing costs in NZ, to rising temperatures in Brazil, November was the month that the UN’s annual climate summit landed in a sweltering South America.
For context, recent research estimated that the annual cost of climate change damage could reach US $38 trillion by 2050 if no progress is made to correct course[6].
Despite the clear challenges ahead, COP30 served up another foggy mix of debate, disagreement, and questionable outputs. At one stage, the summit looked at risk of failing, with the European Union and the UK both frustrated by a refusal to explicitly link fossil fuels to ambitious emission reduction targets.
In the end, voting members landed on a softer deal that repeated pledges made two years ago to transition away from coal, oil, and gas by 2050. References to fossil fuels were implicit rather than explicit.
Noticeable absentees from the summit included Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, who also happen to be the leaders of the world’s two biggest greenhouse gas emitters.
For more information about the origins, successes, and failures of COP events to date, do check out the views of our colleagues at Pathfinder. They recently published a fascinating article on their own site entitled: COP30: Good cop or bad cop?.
Geopolitical friction continues
International tension has been a strong theme of 2025 and so it continued in November.
In Asia, bullish rhetoric from Japanese PM, Sanae Takaichi, about her country’s willingness to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion, was as well-received by China as you might expect. So incensed was its neighbour that it ordered a mass cancellation of tourist travel to Japan, on top of implementing other trade measures.
The fervent reaction by Beijing could prove to be economically damaging for Japan, with one estimate putting a potential US $11.5billion price tag on the latest spat[7].
The fallout highlighted how quickly sentiment can turn, and has turned, in 2025. To that end, there was a flurry of activity towards the end of the month as the US ramped up diplomatic efforts to bring Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to an end.
While it might have the upper hand in some parts of the battlefield, there is no denying that the war effort, and the impact of sanctions, are taking a toll on the Russian economy. GDP is currently forecast by the country’s government to slow in 1% in 2025, down from 4.3% last year, and 4.1% in 2023[8].
Taxing times in the UK
In one of the final acts of the month, the Autumn Budget was unveiled in the UK. It’s an annual occurrence that lays out how the UK government intends to tax and spend over the next 12 months.
As was widely expected, the Budget served up a large menu of tax rises which ultimately broke a core election pledge of the Labour government.
For the foreseeable future, the UK is locked into a flightpath of high tax, high welfare spending, and low growth. Inflation also remains stubborn and is forecasted to average 3.5% this year, comfortably above the Bank of England’s 2% target.
A few final thoughts
If history has taught us anything, especially while Donald Trump is in the White House, it would be foolish to rule out pockets of volatility in the tail-end of 2025.
That said, the last major event for markets before Christmas is the imminent rate decision by the US Federal Reserve. Amid signs of a slowing US economy and a weakening jobs market, financial markets are increasingly pricing in a rate cut. However, Fed voting members have been quoted as saying that the decision is finely balanced and not clear cut.
Broadly speaking, if markets stay true to form, then the investors who stayed the course and didn’t panic sell during earlier bouts of turbulence, look set to be rewarded for their patience and resilience.
[1]Source: https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/bonds-deliver-best-year-since-2020-fed-cuts-fuel-strong-market-rally-across-treasury-sector
[2]Source: Bloomberg data as at end November 2025.
[3]Source: https://www.ft.com/content/bea68366-f644-44f8-a38d-0c041e4a646d
[4] Source: https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/hub/news/2025/11/ocr-lowered-to-2-25-percent
[5]Source: https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2025-11-26/new-zealand-business-confidence-jumps-in-november-to-highest-in-a-decade
[6]Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/climate-change-damage-could-cost-38-trillion-per-year-by-2050-study-finds-2024-04-17/
[7]Source: Chinaturns to familiar playbook in dispute with Japan over Taiwan | AP Newshttps://apnews.com/article/china-japan-takaichi-taiwan-tourism-35660299c8662fb87402d52c44a08688
[8]Source: https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/russia-weighs-how-prop-up-russian-railways-which-is-51-billion-debt-sources-2025-11-25/
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