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“One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don’t clean it up too quickly.” – Andy Rooney

Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.  

Ahead of a holiday-shortened session (equities close for trading at 1 PM Eastern), US equities are in the Christmas mood this morning as futures are flashing shades of red and green. With the magnitude of the gains and losses being so small (less than 5 bps), futures on some of the indices are even alternating between red and green. Volume is very light, and while we could probably find a ‘reason’ for the modest moves up or down, besides jobless claims at 8:30, there’s nothing really going on.

The same can also be said for other areas of the financial markets, as the ten-year yield is down less than a basis point, crude oil is up fractionally, and bitcoin is down less than half of one percent. The only area of any movement this morning is in the metals space. While gold is up fractionally (but still above $4,500 per ounce), platinum, silver, and copper are all up at least 1.5%. If you own any of these metals, Merry Christmas indeed.

In Asia overnight, equity markets were mixed. The Nikkei traded down 0.1%, but China managed to trade 0.5% higher. In Europe, it’s very quiet this morning. Germany and Italy are already closed for Christmas, and the STOXX 600 is basically flat.

There’s been a lot of gains across financial markets this year, and for US stocks, equities typically also finish the year off with a positive bias. Not all stocks make the nice list, though. The table below shows the 14 stocks in the S&P 1500 that have historically traded lower from now through year-end over the last ten years, with declines at least 90% of the time.

At the top of the list, Enphase Energy (ENPH) has traded lower during this period for each of the last ten years, with a median decline of 3.7%. The remaining thirteen stocks on the list have traded down during this period in nine of the last ten years, and the worst performer of them all is bitcoin miner MARA Holdings (MARA). The stock’s median decline during this period has been 7.5%, including double-digit declines in each of the last two years. Other notable stocks on the list include Palo Alto Networks (PANW) and Delta Air Lines (DAL). All fourteen of these stocks can expect some coal in their stockings tomorrow morning.

Getting coal in your stocking this year may not be the worst gift to get. Looking at the performance of the three major coal stocks this year, two are up at least 49%, while the biggest laggard – Alpha Metallurgical (AMR) is up over 10% in the last week and trading more than 22% above its 50-DMA.  All three stocks are up at least 5% in the last week, suggesting that someone has been buying a lot of coal this week. Could it be Santa? Let’s hope not!

For all those who celebrate it, Merry Christmas, and for those who don’t, enjoy the day off!