Before getting to this morning’s pre-market analysis, be sure to watch this CNBC segment with Bespoke’s Paul Hickey discussing the market’s set-up heading into 2026.
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Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
On another likely quiet day for the US markets, futures are lower, but no major index is indicated to open down more than 0.05%, so it wouldn’t take more than a sneeze to flip things around to the positive side. In most other areas of the market, current action is also subdued as treasury yields, crude oil, and crypto assets are all modestly higher. The one area that remains volatile is in the metals markets, as gold is up nearly 2%, while silver is up over 7% and platinum is up over 5%. We saw big negative reversals in these markets yesterday, so if you’re a bull on the sector, you’re breathing a sigh of relief today.
It will be a somewhat busy day for data today as we’ll get the weekly ADP Employment, FHFA House Price Index, and the Chicago PMI for December. The latter report always seems to be negative these days, but expectations are already low at 39.5. In addition to these three reports, we’ll also get the minutes from the December Fed meeting.
In Asia overnight and Europe this morning, it was a tale of two markets as Asia was mostly lower while Europe experienced broad-based gains.
We’re obviously in one of the least volatile periods of the year for stocks, and the chart below illustrates that trend. When it comes to the daily volume in the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) relative to its 200-DMA, Christmas Eve ranks as the day with the least volume of any day of the year, when the median daily volume has been 62.5% below its 200-DMA. The next closest day in terms of low volume is July 3rd, when the median daily volume has been 51.4% below its 200-DMA. It makes sense that these two days would be quiet, given that they precede holidays, but they’re also both days when the market closes early, so the window for trading is shorter.
What was surprising about this chart is when the high-volume days tend to occur. With September and October being the most volatile months of the year, you would expect to see volume spikes during those months as well. While volume tends to come in above average during the fall, the period of highest volume relative to the 200-DMA occurs in late February and March.
One area of the market where volumes weren’t light yesterday was in the commodities market, and more specifically, Silver. The iShares Silver Trust (SLV) had its highest volume day since February 2021, and after hitting a record high last Friday, plunged over 7%, forming a massive island reversal. As shown in the chart below, the gaps between last Friday’s trading range and the day before (Thursday) and the day after (Monday) were extremely wide, with more than a full percentage point separating the sessions on both sides.
