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|  |  | Monday, November 24, 2025 | |  | | Johnny Milano/Bloomberg via Getty Images | Today, builders are practically throwing in the welcome mat, the internet keeps throwing tantrums, Washington is practicing its firm “nope” for AI rescues, and Thanksgiving sides are sharpening their elbows for plate dominance. | | HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW | The bond market is absorbing the AI wave. Credit analysts say the surge in hyperscaler issuance reflects supply pressure, not a
bond-market bubble, pointing to strong cash flow, tight spreads, and more. | Federal data gaps are piling up fast. The BLS couldn’t collect household surveys in time to release
October’s numbers, forcing the Fed into a meeting guided by stale snapshots and an internal divide over rate cuts. | Washington is shutting the AI
bailout door. Lawmakers say AI firms won’t get federal rescue money, even as the sector’s debt-fueled buildout becomes one of the economy’s biggest growth engines. | Bitcoin’s slide is getting brutal. The token has shed more than 31% since its October peak, plunging below $90,000 this week as holiday liquidity and market jitters drag the sector into its roughest month in years. | | | SPONSORED |  | Bring Old Memories Back to
Life. | Your cherished old photos deserve a second chance! PicWish uses AI to eliminate damage, boost color, and sharpen faces. Relive your
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| | EVERYTHING AND THE KITCHEN SINK | The new-construction market is moving through a slow patch that builders can’t paper over with brochure
lighting and stainless-steel appliances. Demand has softened across enough regions that inventories are stacking up, and November’s NAHB/Wells Fargo reading — up just one point to 38 — reflects a mood shaped by caution rather than momentum. (The housing market equivalent of nodding when someone asks if you’re fine, even if you’re probably not.) Builders aren’t panicking, but the survey makes clear that the market has shifted, and builders are adjusting in real time.
The coping
mechanism is price cutting. A record number of builders said they trimmed prices last month (41%), and the average markdown held at 6%, matching October data. Another 65% layered in incentives to keep deals alive, ranging from rate buy-downs to appliance packages to full move-in bundles that feel suspiciously festive this time of year. Oh, and there’s a twist: For the first time in 25 years, new homes are cheaper than existing ones.
That shift creates real leverage for anyone willing
to approach a builder with patience and a strategy. Smaller firms are often more willing to negotiate on finishes. Quick move-in homes can tilt the entire conversation toward the buyer. In-house financing opens the door to deeper concessions for those who can live with the strings attached. None of that replaces the basics, but in a market like this, the edge goes to buyers who approach the process with strategy rather than speed. Quartz’s Deborah Kearns has more on the pricing math that flipped new construction upside down. | Trusted by c-suites and Wall Street.
From legacy institutions to the next generation of disruptors, Semafor Business covers everything you need to know about the forces driving the financial world. Don’t miss a beat in fast-moving markets.
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| | CACHE ME IF YOU CAN | The past few months have been a reminder that the internet’s weak points aren’t hiding in the shadows; they’re sitting in plain sight, tucked into the connective layers that everyone assumes are boring and sturdy. Cloudflare, AWS, Microsoft, and Google each hit a snag, and the impact refused to stay politely
contained. Each glitch started as routine maintenance and ballooned into a global timeout, freezing banks, retailers, airlines, and even the so-called “smart” appliances that insist on greeting the cloud before brewing a cup of coffee.
Companies like to talk about spreading risk, but the plumbing underneath them keeps pulling in the same direction. Cloudflare fronts a staggering amount of web traffic. AWS’ busiest region still behaves like a single pressure point. Microsoft’s
identity layers quietly referee the office world. Google approves the background tests that keep apps moving. The connective layers that sit above those walls concentrate risk in places users never see and businesses can’t diversify away from. That’s how a routine tweak in Virginia can make a checkout crash in Chicago.
Analysts tracking the outages stopped clock-watching and focused on the blast radius: thousands of companies, dozens of countries, millions of user reports, all
triggered by microscopic adjustments. The modern web behaves less like a distributed network and more like a single, load-bearing organism with a fragile central nervous system. Nothing “broke” in a cinematic sense. The internet hasn’t fallen apart, but it keeps showing how little nudging that would actually take. Quartz’s Shannon Carroll has more on how routine fixes go rogue at scale. | | | SPONSORED | | Bring Old Memories Back to
Life. | Your cherished old photos deserve a second chance! PicWish uses AI to eliminate damage, boost color, and sharpen faces. Relive your
favorite moments in crystal-clear quality. | | |
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