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“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” – Socrates
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
As we approached the turn of the calendar, December was flooded with market outlooks for the year ahead, which always present the reader with highly confident expectations for the year ahead. Reading through most of them, the blueprint for the year ahead looks certain – solid earnings growth, two to three rate cuts, higher but stable inflation, and steady economic growth. It’s almost as though the outcome for 2026 has been pre-ordained. If only life were that simple.
All you had to do was watch last night’s Ole Miss/Georgia game to be reminded that even when everyone thinks they know what’s “going” to happen, it’s not uncommon for the opposite to play out. In the week leading up to last night’s game, prediction markets were giving Ole Miss less than a one in three chance of winning. After the game started, the odds for Ole Miss got worse, falling below 20% for much of the game. When the game finally ended just before midnight, though, it was Ole Miss on top by a score of 39-34. Whether it’s in sports, your personal life, or the markets, just because everyone seems to agree on what’s going to happen doesn’t mean that’s what will play out. Expect surprises.
After the weakness to close out 2025, investors are probably surprised to see futures looking so strong this morning. S&P 500 futures are pointing to a 0.57% gain to start the year, while the Nasdaq is on pace for a 1% gain. The 10-year yield is little changed at 4.15% while crude oil is down fractionally at just above $57 per barrel. After a volatile end to 2025, metals have picked up right where they left off last year, but this time on a positive note. Gold is up over 1%, while silver and platinum are up over 4% each.
In Asia, Japan and China were closed, but other major indices in the region traded on a positive note, with Hong Kong up 2.8% and South Korea jumping 2.3%. The only economic indicator of note in the region was South Korea’s manufacturing PMI, which moved slightly back into expansionary territory at a level of 50.1.
European stocks are also positive this morning, with the STOXX 600 up 0.5%, led higher by Italy and Spain with gains of 0.6% each. The gains come despite generally weaker than expected manufacturing PMI readings for the region, where the Eurozone slid further into contraction, and Germany’s reading fell from 48.2 to 47.0.
While futures are higher to kick off 2026, 2025 ended like a 500-pound bag of rocks, or more accurately, 482 rocks. The S&P 500 dropped 0.74%, which wasn’t the worst decline considering breadth was exceptionally bad with 482 index members declining versus only 19 rising. We consider an all-or-nothing day when breadth is +/-400, meaning at least 90% of the S&P 500’s constituents rose or fell. Wednesday was the first all-or-nothing day since July 15, when net breadth was -404. As shown in the table below, the first all-or-nothing day in at least three months has typically been followed by gains, but not particularly stronger or weaker than the long-term average. That’s also the case when the first day in at least three months is a ‘nothing’ day like Wednesday was. With that said, in the near term (one week and one month), median returns have been a little bit weaker than all periods after those instances.
