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Briefing.com Summary:
*The Santa Claus Rally failed to materialize this year; now, it is on to watching the January Barometer.
*NVIDIA launched its Rubin platform; and Microchip Technology raised its December quarter revenue guidance.
*Metals prices continue to trade higher.
Setting aside all the understandable attention on the weekend developments in Venezuela and Maduro's capture at the hands of U.S. forces, there were two notable happenings in the stock market on Monday. The first is that the Dow Jones Industrial Average established a new record closing high. The second is that, by way of some late selling pressure, Santa Claus went missing on Wall Street.
To be succinct, the last five trading sessions of 2025 and the first two trading sessions of 2026 did not result in a net gain for the S&P 500. That means there was no "Santa Claus Rally" this year. Trading lore suggests this failure to show on Broad and Wall could be a precursor to a significant market downturn later in the year.
That possibility is more anecdotal than fundamental, however, which is to say it isn't to be read as a given. In any case, the lack of a Santa Claus Rally will be filed away as a chink in the bull market's armor and will now give way to other trading views, such as the January Barometer that posits, "as goes January, so goes the year."
Clearly, there is a good bit of time left in January, so much remains to be seen—and will be seen as Congress is tasked with passing a resolution before the end of the month to keep the government funded, the FOMC holds another meeting, and the Supreme Court possibly issues its ruling on the president's tariff authority.
What we see today is a market poised to start the third trading session of January on a mixed and flattish note.
The S&P 500 futures are up one point and are trading in line with fair value, the Nasdaq 100 futures are up 40 points and are trading 0.1% above fair value, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures are down 37 points and are trading 0.1% below fair value.
NVIDIA (NVDA) and Microchip Technology (MCHP) are providing the early support. The former launched its Rubin platform at CES yesterday, and CEO Jensen Huang said its H200 chip is seeing strong demand in China; meanwhile, Microchip raised its December quarter revenue guidance, saying it is experiencing a fairly broad-based recovery in most of its end markets.
Shares of NVDA are up 0.8%, and shares of MCHP are up 4.4% in pre-market trading.
The rest of the stock market looks a bit sleepy, lacking other exciting trading catalysts. Elsewhere, metals prices continue to move higher, with copper pushing above $6.00/lb, gold approaching $4500.00/toz, and silver pushing back towards $80.00/toz.
Treasury yields are little changed ahead of today's only economic release at 9:45 a.m. ET, which is the final December reading for the S&P Global U.S. Services PMI (prior 52.9).
