Instead of No-shave November, this year bitcoin investors are trying out a new spinoff: No-gains November.

The blue chip cryptocurrency is seriously stuck in a rut. It’s down 10.26% over the past week, and today hit its worst monthly performance since the Oscars’ slap back in 2022. The drought has gotten so bad that bitcoin has now shed roughly a quarter of its value in November alone.

As the OG crypto, bitcoin’s slide is bringing the rest of the digital asset crew down with it: Ether fell 3.17% today, solana sank 4.55%, and XRP lost 2.64%. Its flop era is hitting stocks, too: Strategy lost 3.74%. And don’t even get us started on altcoins.

Earlier this year, digital assets were riding high on a warm embrace from the White House and a booming market for risk assets. But crypto investors were spooked first by fears that AI valuations are overblown, and more recently worries that the Federal Reserve may not cut rates next month. That matters for bitcoin, because when interest rates stay higher, growth assets that are boosted by lower borrowing costs—like crypto—tend to feel the brunt of the pain.

Is a bitcoin bounce in our future?

While bitcoin has been having a tougher week than Whitney Leavitt from Dancing With the Stars, it’s by no means an industry implosion to the level of past crypto winters. Just don’t expect an immediate comeback.

“Liquidity will likely dry up across markets this week and heading into the holiday season,” head of research at the crypto data provider Kaiko Adam Morgan McCarthy told Barron’s.

Many bulls argue that the longer this drought goes on, the better the buying opportunity becomes. But the volatility of the past month is also a great reminder why financial advisors don’t advise putting any more than 5% of your portfolio in bitcoin.—LB

🟢 What’s up

• Alphabet gained 3.33% and surpassed Microsoft as the third-largest US company by market cap, the first time it surpassed its big tech rival since August 2018.
• Gap jumped 8.24% on strong revenue fueled by a viral marketing boost from its Katseye campaign.
• Intuit rose 4.03% after beating fiscal Q1 earnings and revenue estimates, and it’s still enjoying a boost after announcing a $100 million partnership with OpenAI earlier this week.
• Ross Stores gained 8.41% as it topped earnings forecasts and raised its full-year guidance.
• Healthcare product manufacturer QuidelOrtho climbed 14.27% following CEO Brian Blaser’s purchase of 23,500 shares, signaling confidence in the stock.
• Life science company Azenta advanced 16.30% after delivering a fiscal Q4 earnings beat that topped analyst expectations.
• Enviri skyrocketed 28.22% after announcing a deal to sell its Clean Earth waste division to rival Veolia for $3 billion.

What’s down

• Veeva Systems fell 9.77% despite beating earnings, as investors focused on the company landing only 14 of the top 20 biopharma firms for its new Vault customer relationship management system.
• Elastic slipped 14.67% after posting strong results but reporting a slowdown in cloud revenue growth in the first quarter.
• Oracle dropped 5.66% as its slump continued amid renewed fears of an AI bubble and concerns about its heavy debt load.
• Bath & Body Works sank 4.93% following yesterday’s plunge, with weak Q3 results prompting multiple Wall Street downgrades.
• authID tumbled 21.64% after pricing a $3.67 million share offering that pressured the stock.

Eli Lilly became the first healthcare company to join the $1 trillion market cap club, after briefly hitting the milestone this morning. It’s now the second non-tech company to reach that mark, following Berkshire Hathaway.

The drugmaker’s surge came after it beat Q3 earnings and revenue expectations and raised its full-year guidance late last month, gaining market share for the fifth straight quarter as it continues to outmuscle rival Novo Nordisk. Growth was driven by surging demand for diabetes drug Mounjaro and weight-loss injection Zepbound, with revenues up 109% and 184%, respectively.

Zoom out: The weight-loss drug market has grown highly competitive as drugmakers race for dominance. Just earlier this month, Pfizer escalated the battle by outbidding Novo Nordisk with a $10 billion deal for obesity-drug developer Metsera. Even so, Eli Lilly has pulled ahead—its stock is up 37.34% YTD, while Novo is down 44.42% and Pfizer has fallen 5.64%.

That momentum now meets a shifting policy landscape. Starting Jan. 1, employers will get direct access to obesity drugs from Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, cutting out traditional PBM channels and the middleman fees that inflate costs. The move follows pressure from the Trump administration, which has pushed drugmakers to lower prices.

While lower prices for its products should theoretically lower profits, in practice, demand is so high that Eli Lilly doesn't stand to lose much in the long run. Morgan Stanley now expects the global obesity drug market to reach $150 billion by 2035, a sharp increase from its earlier $105 billion estimate. Eli Lilly has established a dominant position in that growing market, and while it didn't stay a $1 trillion company for very long today, it seems only a matter of time before it climbs above that bar once again.—SY

Pop the top-shelf champagne: A record number of 401(k) accounts ballooned to seven figures, minting more millionaires than ever.

Fidelity found that 654,000 Americans became 401(k) millionaires in Q3. That’s just 1.25% of its 52 million retirement account holders, who spent roughly 25 to 26 years patiently padding their nest eggs paycheck by paycheck. The number of IRA millionaires also hit a new record at 559,181. Even regular Joes still light years from millionaire status shouldn’t feel too bad: average balances hit their own records of $144,400 for 401(k)s and $137,902 for IRAs.

But here’s the catch: Saving a million bucks isn’t the end-all-be-all milestone it used to be. A conservative withdrawal rate of 5% would amount to just $50,000 per year—which won’t get you far during retirement amid the spiraling costs of healthcare, housing, and inflation. People are also living longer and may need that cash to stretch for 30+ years. And don’t forget that Social Security faces 23% cuts in 2033 unless Congress acts.

Bottom line? A million bucks is great, but you’d better keep going.

There’s another surprise: Gen Z—long teased as being slow to get hitched, buy a home, and have kids—is actually the generation most on track to retire in style. Vanguard found that 47% of workers aged 24 to 28 are currently poised to maintain their current spending habits in retirement, followed by 41% of Gen X (aged 45 to 60) and 40% of baby boomers (61 to 65).

But this doesn’t mean Gen Z are better savers. Kudos instead go to the growing number of companies auto-enrolling employees in 401(k) plans, banking on the fact that workers are too lazy to opt out. Vanguard found that 92% of auto-enrollees were still socking away money three years later, versus just 29% who had to voluntarily sign up. Given how tough it’s gotten to save enough money for retirement, maybe we should take all the help we can get.—JD

• That can’t be good: 25% of unemployed workers have a four-year degree.
• Related: Amazon cut 1,800 engineers in its latest massive layoff.
• Paramount, Netflix, and Comcast are officially in a bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery.
• Air taxi producer Joby Aviation is suing its competitor, Archer Aviation, for allegedly using stolen information to secure a partnership deal.
• Shoot for the stars: Google’s head of AI infrastructure told employees the company must double AI serving capacity every six months to meet high demand.
• Less stringent regulation on US banks is expected to generate $2.6 trillion for financial institutions.
• US consumer sentiment tumbled to one of its lowest levels ever last month.

It’s a short week, so economic reports are few and far between.

Tuesday brings two reports delayed by the government shutdown: September US retail sales and August business inventories. We’ll also get the usually scheduled S&P Case-Shiller home price index, pending home sales, and an early look at consumer confidence in November.

Wednesday should bring us a first revision of Q3 GDP, as well as a look at PCE for October—but there’s a strong chance those reports are delayed, if not outright canceled. We’ll likely have to settle for initial jobless claims and a delayed look at durable-goods orders from September.

As for earnings reports, the season takes a serious chill pill next week.

Monday: Zoom Video Communications and Semtech

Tuesday: Alibaba, Analog Devices, Dell, HP, Dick’s Sporting Goods, JM Smucker, Workday, Zscaler, Burlington Stores, Nio, and Abercrombie & Fitch

Wednesday: Deere & Co, and Li Auto

Thursday: US markets are closed for Thanksgiving, go eat some turkey

Friday: No earnings, and don’t forget that US markets close early so you can get your Black Friday shopping done