Santa and 2026 prospects

S&P 500 went nowhere Friday – I talked the tight range and limited ES, NDX upside with clients well before the opening bell. Nevermind the usual seasonality of the day after Christmas being a strong up day – we got that rally over three preceding days already.

S&P 500 is already above the mid Dec peak, while Nasdaq has more work to do in this aspect. What caught everyone‘s eye, is NVDA doing great – Friday‘s chip tariff announcement (hiatus of new ones), most definitely helped the whole ecosystem, so (earnings) winners such as MU got stronger, and AVGO kept slowly turning. I‘m not that much worried about the great looking TSLA chart (just as GOOGL before, this one gave an appealing dip to $475.

So what would I pay most attention to in the say two weeks ahead? The typical seasonal effects still playing out till year end, and then the early January effect… volatility metrics thus far continue agreeing.

Gold and silver are likewise both bringing gains to clients as called, while oil trapped between East European peace hopes and Venezuela war fears. As for Bitcoin, is it time to be really optimistic – or can the Nasdaq inspiration (they‘re supposed to be correlated) have its way?