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“The freshest moments in my films have always been with unknown actors.” – John Singleton
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The rally in the US to kick off the week yesterday continued overnight in Asia as Japan, China, and South Korea all rallied between 1.0% and 1.5%. The strength came amid a weaker manufacturing PMI reading in Hong Kong and a weaker services PMI in India. In China, the PBoC said that monetary policy would be maintained at loose levels to further support growth.
European stocks are also positive, but with more modest gains. The STOXX 600 is up 0.2%, and France’s 0.1% decline is the only major country benchmark in the red as bank stocks lag. The December Services PMI for December came in slightly weaker than expected, decelerating to 52.4 from 53.6 in November.
In the US, futures are on either side of the flatline, with S&P 500 futures barely higher, while Dow futures are barely lower. Nasdaq futures are faring better, but with an implied gain of 0.22% aren’t shooting the lights out. Treasury yields, crude oil, and gold are all fractionally higher, while silver, platinum, and palladium are all up over 1%. After a solid rally yesterday, which took it to its best levels in six weeks, Bitcoin is down modestly at just under $94K.
The market is always changing, but just because the year on the calendar changed last week, the performance of stocks leading the way higher hasn’t changed all that much- at least not yet. The table below lists the 20 best-performing S&P 500 stocks so far this year. For starters, Sandisk (SNDK) is the best-performing stock this year, and it was also the best in the S&P 500 last year, even though it didn’t have a full year of trading to gain more than 500%!
Besides SNDK, five of the other top performers were also stocks that more than doubled in 2025! Sure, there were some losers last year, like Centene (CNC) and Moderna (MRNA), that have gotten off to a strong start this year, but overall, last year’s median performance of the 20 best-performing S&P 500 stocks so far this year was a gain of 41.7%. The list is also dominated by tech, with eight of the 20 stocks coming from that sector.
While eight of the 20 best-performing stocks in the S&P 500 so far this year are from the Technology sector, nine of the worst performers are also from the S&P 500’s largest sector. Besides AppLovin (APP), though, none of them were big winners in 2025. Of the 20 worst performers in the first two trading days of 2026, twelve were also down in 2025, and the median decline of all 20 was 7.9%. It’s also worth pointing out that the magnitude of the declines in the biggest losers so far this year is basically a third of the magnitude of the size of the gain in the biggest winners (-3.6% vs 10.6%).
Another area where the change in the calendar didn’t impact that market was in the volatility of various metals. Silver is a perfect example, as volatility in gold’s bridesmaid hasn’t skipped a beat in the first two trading days of 2026. While silver only moved 0.58% last Friday, yesterday’s 7.1% rally was right in line with what has become the norm in recent weeks, and the chart is beginning to look increasingly funky with multiple detached candles with no overlap to the prior day’s range.
Over the last six trading days, silver’s daily move has been above 7% on five separate trading days, and the average daily move during the last 25 trading days has been 3.89%. That’s the highest average daily move over five weeks since October 2008, and there have only been a handful of periods in the last 50 years where the average daily move was higher. It doesn’t get more volatile than that. Somebody better put a ring on it.
