Friends

With the first day of trading for the new year falling on a Friday, it was a fairly quiet trading session. The market averages were mixed but oddly enough, reversed from how they opened. The Dow opened down and reversed to move higher while Nasdaq had a nice open but gave it all back as the trading session wore on.

By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 319 points to finish the day at 48,382. The S&P 500 was up 12 points to close at 6,858. The Nasdaq was down 6 points to close at 23,235. Gold was down $3 to trade at $4,338, while oil was down $.15 to trade at $57.27 per barrel WTI.

I suspect the action will pick up on Monday when many traders get back from their holiday time off. We enter 2026 with stocks trading at relatively expensive levels. Will the Fed provide accommodation? Will the labor market remain resilient? Have we seen the worst of this inflation cycle? Will the economy continue to grow at its recent robust pace? As always, we have many questions to answer as we enter a new year. But hey, that’s what makes this so interesting.

Have a great weekend everyone.