Top US Stocks to Watch This Week (December 8–12, 2025)

If you looked only at the index level, you could be forgiven for thinking not much is happening.

The S&P 500 and Dow are sitting within roughly a percent of all-time highs. The Nasdaq is a touch below its own peak after shaking off a choppy November. Inflation, at least on the Fed’s preferred measures, is gliding around the high-2% range. Bond yields have cooled. Headlines talk about “soft landings” again.

Under the surface, it is far messier.

This week, markets have to digest three big forces at once: a Fed meeting that will set the tone for 2026, a cluster of important earnings from AI and consumer bellwethers, and an ongoing tug-of-war in institutional money between expensive growth and unloved value. That mix is what makes the week of 812 December worth watching.

Market Overview: Calm Indices, Busy Tape

Coming into Monday, the picture looks like this in broad strokes:

• The S&P 500 and Dow are hovering just below record territory.

• The Nasdaq is within a short swing of a new high after a volatile November.

• The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, PCE, is running around 2.8-2.9% year-on-year.

• The 10-year Treasury yield is sitting near 4.1%, down from earlier peaks.

Recent data, delayed by the government shutdown, tells a story of growth that is slower but still alive. Consumer spending was up 0.3% in September. Early December sentiment readings surprised slightly to the upside. It is not a booming economy, but it is not breaking either.

That mix has created a kind of nervous optimism. The equity market is priced for rate relief and a reasonably soft landing. At the same time, November reminded everyone how quickly the narrative can change when sector leadership flips, or a single Fed sentence lands poorly.

The Week’s Key Dates

1. Fed Meeting: 9-10 December

The last FOMC meeting of 2025 is the main act.

Futures point to a high probability of a 0.25 percentage point cut, which would take the target band to roughly 3.5-3.75%. Most traders came into this week assuming that part is a formality.

The real question is what comes next.

• Does Powell hint that more easing is likely in 2026

• Or signal that policy is now close to “done for a while”

The statement and press conference on Wednesday afternoon have as much weight as the decision itself. Rate cuts are largely reflected in the price. The tone is not.

2. Economic Data: 11 December

On Thursday, two releases will get attention:

• Producer Price Index (PPI) for November, a look at wholesale inflation.

• Weekly jobless claims are a quick check on how much the labour market is cooling.

Neither usually rewrites the script alone. But with the jobs and inflation data pipeline only just restarting after the shutdown, every new data point matters more than usual.

3. Corporate Earnings: Mid-Week Cluster

It is late in the quarter but not quiet. A small group of large-caps could still move sectors:

• Oracle $ORCL ( ▲ 0.67% ) reports on Wednesday after the close

• Adobe $ADBE ( ▼ 0.35% ) reports on Wednesday after the close

• Broadcom $AVGO ( ▲ 1.64% ) reports Thursday after the close

• Costco $COST ( ▼ 1.58% ) reports Thursday after the close

• Lululemon $LULU ( ▲ 2.93% ) reports Thursday after the close

Around them sit other names like AutoZone and Toll Brothers, adding extra colour to autos and housing.

Top Large-Cap Stocks To Watch

Oracle (ORCL): AI Promise Meets Debt Questions

Oracle has spent the last year reshaping itself as an AI-centric cloud provider, anchored by a huge multiyear deal to supply compute capacity to OpenAI. On paper, it looks like the kind of contract that can change a company’s trajectory.

The equity market has not fully bought into that story yet.

The stock has come under pressure as investors weigh:

• The scale of Oracle’s spending on capacity and data centres

• The debt raised to fund that buildout

• The speed at which AI demand turns into actual, high-margin revenue

This quarter’s update will be judged on a few simple points:

• Is cloud growth accelerating

• Is AI demand visible in the numbers rather than just the slides

• Does guidance beat or merely meet earnings expectations around $1.64 per share

A report showing the OpenAI relationship translating into tangible growth would strengthen the bullish case. A more tentative outlook would keep the valuation debate alive.

Broadcom (AVGO): The Quiet Giant In The AI Engine Room

Broadcom is not the company that fills social feeds with product launches, but it has become one of the market’s strongest performers in 2025. It sits in the unglamorous but essential layer of the AI stack: custom chips and networking hardware that allow data centres to move and process the flood of AI workloads.

By early December, the stock was up roughly two-thirds year-to-date, ahead of many high-profile mega-caps.

Expectations for Thursday’s report are high:

• Solid double-digit EPS growth

• Strong demand for AI-related components

• Ongoing orders from major cloud customers, including Google’s Tensor “Ironwood” chips

Investors will be listening closely for comments on:

• Order backlogs and visibility into 2026

• Any sign that AI demand is normalising rather than accelerating

• Capital allocation and how much of the AI boom is feeding through to shareholders

Given how central Broadcom has become to the AI story, even small changes in tone can ripple across the semiconductor space.

Adobe (ADBE): A Check-Up On Enterprise Spending

Adobe sits in an interesting middle ground: not a hyperscaler, not a chipmaker, but a core supplier of software to creative professionals and marketing teams.

This quarter is less about one line item and more about the overall mood of its customers.

Key questions around the print:

• Are enterprises still expanding seat counts and usage

• How quickly are AI-powered features being adopted inside Creative Cloud and other products

• Is management sounding upbeat, neutral or cautious on 2026 budgets

Because Adobe touches both creative work and marketing spend, its commentary can be a useful barometer for broader software and digital-advertising trends.

Costco (COST): A Simple Read On A Complicated Consumer

Macroeconomic data can make the consumer look like a statistical abstraction. Costco turns it back into something very concrete: what people actually put in their trolleys and how often they show up.

This week, the focus is on:

• Net sales growth, which has been running in the high single digits

• Membership renewal rates are a key driver of Costco’s recurring revenue

• Early signs from holiday traffic and ticket size

Management’s comments on how households are trading off between essentials, bulk bargains and discretionary extras will be watched not only for Costco’s sake, but for what they imply about the health of the broader consumer sector.

Lululemon (LULU): Testing The “Resilient Affluent” Thesis

Lululemon sits in the premium corner of the consumer discretionary sector. It sells not basic clothing but a specific identity wrapped around activewear, and it has been expanding into footwear and menswear.

The last few quarters suggested that higher-income consumers remained willing to spend, even as other parts of retail wobbled. This update will show whether that pattern is holding.

Points to watch:

• Any change in full-year guidance

• Gross margins and markdown activity

• Inventory levels after the autumn season and Black Friday

Lululemon’s share price tends to move sharply on results. That volatility often spills into other premium brands and discretionary names.

Catalysts And Risks Around The Week

Fed Policy And Communication

The Fed decision on 10 December is the single most significant catalyst.

A cut of 0.25 percentage points, framed as part of a gradual easing path with inflation under control, would be taken as confirmation of the “soft landing with rate relief” narrative that has supported equities.

A cut accompanied by language that leans heavily on residual inflation risk, or hints at a long pause in 2026, could have the opposite effect. In that scenario, markets would have to reconcile high valuations with a slower path to easier policy.

Inflation And Growth Data

• A cooler-than-expected PPI print would reinforce the story that inflation pressures are easing along the supply chain.

• A hot PPI print, especially on the core measure, would raise questions about how far the Fed can keep cutting.

Weekly jobless claims will be read alongside recent private-sector payroll data to gauge how quickly the labour market is softening. A gentle slowdown fits the current script. A sudden deterioration would reopen recession worries.

Oil, Commodities And Geopolitics

Oil prices have been subdued, mainly to the benefit of consumers and rate expectations. But they are no longer sliding. OPEC+ decisions to maintain production cuts and ongoing military strikes around energy infrastructure have put a floor under prices around the 60-dollar mark.

A renewed spike in oil would:

• Support energy equities

• Complicate the inflation outlook

• Raise questions about how much room the Fed has left to cut

Geopolitical tensions and trade measures sit in the background as latent risks rather than scheduled events, but they remain part of the equation.

Corporate Surprises

Late-season earnings from companies like Oracle, Broadcom, Costco and Lululemon often act as sector-level catalysts.

• Strong cloud numbers from Oracle could lift software and infrastructure names.

• A firm AI outlook from Broadcom could reinforce the bullish view on semiconductors.

• A cautious tone from Costco or Lululemon could weigh on retail and consumer discretionary.

Occasional M&A headlines, such as the recent Netflix-Warner Bros. Discovery deal, add another layer of potential shocks, especially across media and streaming.

Hot Sectors Heading Into The Week

Technology & Communication Services

After a pullback in November, tech and communication services have regained momentum as yields fell and AI spending stayed robust. Within that broad bucket, the market has been more selective:

• AI-exposed semiconductors and cloud infrastructure have drawn renewed interest.

• Some richly valued software names have seen more muted flows.

Tech is no longer trading as a single bloc. Earnings and guidance matter again.

Energy

Energy had been left behind for much of 2025. That changed when oil stopped falling, and talk of oversupply faded.

Recent gains in the sector have been modest but noticeable. Higher oil and firmer natural gas prices into winter have given integrated producers and select E&Ps a tailwind. Whether that continues depends heavily on how stable the 60-dollar oil floor proves to be.

Healthcare & Staples

Defensive groups such as healthcare and consumer staples saw strong inflows in November as large investors rotated out of mega-cap growth.

• Healthcare benefited from relatively low valuations and a string of positive drug and pipeline headlines.

• Staples gained as institutions sought stable cash flows amid a noisy macro environment.

If this week’s Fed message encourages more risk-taking, some of that defensive positioning could ease. If the message is interpreted as cautious, these sectors are well placed to hold up.

Consumer Discretionary

This is where the story fragments.

• Premium and experience-driven spending has held up better than many expected. Beauty, travel and upscale retail have posted strong results.

• Lower-end, price-sensitive segments have been more mixed, with discount retailers sometimes outperforming mid-market chains.

Costco and Lululemon sit at two important points on that spectrum. Their remarks this week will offer a useful signal among the noise.

Institutional Rotation: Under The Hood Of The Index

The last few weeks have been less about whether “the market” is up or down and more about which market is leading.

• In November, money moved out of the most prominent growth names. The ultra-mega-cap index suffered a sharp pullback as investors trimmed winners and rotated into healthcare, staples, energy and other value-oriented groups.

• As December began, the tone flipped. Small-caps rallied, high-beta names bounced and flows into communication services and parts of tech picked up again.

Beneath that back-and-forth are a few simple motivations:

• Locking in profits after a strong year for mega-caps

• Taking advantage of lower valuations in out-of-favour sectors

• Positioning around the expected Fed cut and any subsequent steepening in the yield curve

This week’s Fed decision is likely to decide which of those trends carries into year-end:

• A clearly dovish signal would favour renewed interest in growth and duration-sensitive assets, from semiconductors to small-caps.

• A more guarded message would support continued demand for defensives and quality value.

Bringing It Together

On paper, this looks like a relatively quiet week in December. In practice, it is one of the hinges on which the rest of the year swings.

Markets are sitting close to record highs, with inflation cooler, yields lower and flows still positive into US equities. At the same time, leadership has been rotating, valuations in parts of tech remain demanding, and the Fed is about to speak with more information gaps than usual after the shutdown.

The combination of:

• A widely expected rate cut

• A still evolving inflation and labour picture

• And a cluster of earnings from Oracle, Broadcom, Adobe, Costco and Lululemon

creates a setup where the details matter more than the headlines.