Chart of the Day – How This Year Stacks Up + Big Gold Reversal
Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 12/30/25 – An Island of Volatility in Metals
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.
See what’s driving market performance around the world in today’s Morning Lineup. Bespoke’s Morning Lineup is the best way to start your trading day. Read it now by starting a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium. CLICK HERE to learn more and start your trial.
“I wake up every day and I can’t wait to go to work, and that’s a gift. Not too many people have the opportunity to feel that way.” – Tiger Woods
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.
The Closer – FX Review, Five Fed – 12/29/25
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Looking for deeper insight into markets? In tonight’s Closer sent to Bespoke Institutional clients, after last week’s recap of commodities in 2025, we give a review of currency markets (pages 1 – 3). We also check up on our Five Fed Manufacturing Composite (page 4).
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Daily Sector Snapshot — 12/29/25
Chart of the Day: S&P 500 in 2025
Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 12/29/25
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.
See what’s driving market performance around the world in today’s Morning Lineup. Bespoke’s Morning Lineup is the best way to start your trading day. Read it now by starting a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium. CLICK HERE to learn more and start your trial.
“Investors should purchase stocks like they purchase groceries, not like they purchase perfume.” – Benjamin Graham
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
With just three trading days left in the year, below are a number of snapshots from our Trend Analyzer tool highlighting where various asset classes, sectors, and large-cap stocks stand on a year-to-date basis and relative to their 50-DMAs.
Gold (GLD) is now easily the top performing major asset class in 2025 with a 70%+ gain. The next-best is the “rest of world” equity market with the all country ex US ETF (CWI) up 29.2% YTD. The Tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) ranks third with a 22% gain.
There are three key asset classes in the red this year: Bitcoin (IBIT), the dollar (UUP), and oil (USO).
Of the ETFs shown, the dollar (UUP) is the most oversold heading into year end, while gold (GLD) is the most overbought.
Looking at major domestic equity index ETFs, mid-caps have been “mid” in 2025 with only single-digit gains, while large-caps are up closer to 20%. Heading into 2026, every single index ETF shown is above its 50-DMA, with the large majority overbought.
Brunch Reads – 12/28/25
Welcome to Bespoke Brunch Reads — a linkfest of some of our favorite articles over the past week. The links are mostly market-related, but there are some other interesting subjects covered as well. We hope you enjoy the food for thought as a supplement to the research we provide you during the week.
Gulags Go Global: When Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn published The Gulag Archipelago on December 28, 1973, it was the first time the full scale and structure of the Soviet forced-labor camp system was laid out in a single work. The book was assembled over more than a decade, drawing on Solzhenitsyn’s own years in labor camps and exile, and written accounts and interviews from more than 200 other former prisoners. Because possession of the manuscript inside the USSR would have put others at risk, it was secretly copied, hidden, and eventually smuggled to the West, where it was published after Soviet authorities learned of its existence.
The book traces how arrests were carried out, how interrogations worked, how sentences were assigned, and how the camps functioned economically and politically. Solzhenitsyn argues that the Gulag was not an abuse of the Soviet system but an essential part of it, supplying labor, enforcing obedience, and eliminating perceived threats.
The Soviet government responded quickly. The book was banned, denounced as anti-Soviet propaganda, and in early 1974, Solzhenitsyn was arrested, stripped of his citizenship, and deported from the country. In the West, The Gulag Archipelago became a central reference point in discussions about communism and the Soviet state, especially among academics and political commentators who had previously downplayed or questioned reports of mass repression.
Food & Restaurants
Alcohol consumption falls to record low in Britain (Financial Times)
Drinking in the UK keeps trending lower, with the average adult now having the fewest weekly drinks on record, driven by higher costs, health awareness, and an aging population. People aren’t quitting alcohol altogether, but they’re just drinking less often and spending more per drink, which is helping producers offset weaker volumes. [Link]
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Daily Sector Snapshot — 12/26/25
Whose Bubble Is It Anyway?
Plenty of ink has been spilled in the last year about the current AI Boom and whether it’s actually an “AI Bubble.”
The current bull market for US stocks began on 10/12/22 based on the standard 20% rally/decline threshold. After a nasty bear market from the first trading day of 2022 through the 10/12/22 closing low, the current bull has seen the S&P rally 103% on a total return basis. The Tech/AI-heavy Nasdaq is up even more with a total return of 132.3% over the same time frame.
After the rally we’ve seen in the precious metals in the last couple of months, though, traders in the space must be looking at the AI Boom and thinking “hold my beer.”
Below is a look at the performance of the S&P 500, the Nasdaq Composite, and gold, silver, and platinum since the current bull market for stocks began on 10/12/22.
As shown, gold is now up 171.7%, platinum is up 183.7%, and silver is up just over 300%! All three metals have now easily beaten the stock market during the AI Boom.
A doubling of the major indices over a 3+ year time frame certainly qualifies as a strong bull market, and it’s hard to argue that valuations aren’t a bit lofty. But if the current AI-driven bull market for stocks is a “bubble,” then certainly what we’ve seen in precious metals lately qualifies as well.
Ironically, many bears that call the AI trade a speculative bubble also recommend increasing exposure to gold and other precious metals, but that kind of rationale gets more difficult now that the metals trade has gone even more parabolic than stocks!
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Magnificent Metals
The last couple of weeks have been historic for metals. From the close on 12/10 through the pre-market, the various ETFs tied to gold, silver, platinum, and palladium have surged anywhere from 6.8% for gold (GLD) to 44.5% for platinum (PLTM). The magnitude of gains in such a short period of time is practically unheard of.
To put some perspective on the moves, the table below lists the top-performing stocks in the S&P 500 since the close on 12/10. All 14 stocks listed have had double-digit percentage moves. Surprisingly, the three biggest gainers have all been cruise lines with Norwegian Cruise Line (NCLH), Carnival (CCL), and Royal Caribbean (RCL) rallying between just under 13% to just over 20%. As impressive as those gains are, though, based on where the metals ETFs are trading this morning, Platinum (PLTM), Palladium (PALL), and Silver (SLV) have all seen larger gains, and if they were S&P 500 stocks, they would rank as 1, 2, and 3, respectively. Platinum is up more than twice as much as the S&P 500’s top-performing stock (NCLH)! Even gold, with its 6.82% gain, would rank as the 43rd top-performing stock in the S&P 500. Is it the Mag 7 or the Mag Metals?
