January 6th Market Overview

Happy Tuesday

Three days into 2026 and the markets are cooking. Dow crossed 49k intraday. S&P set a record. Silver continues going parabolic at $81… up 6% just today. Stocks and precious metals are both ripping at the same time, people are bullish but hedging something they can't quite name.

Also new Fed chair pick sometime soon: Trump did say January, my guess is Hassett as he is more of a yes man. Hassett and Warsh essentially tied.

Let’s dig in...

Today's Big Picture

1. The Dow is ripping

The Dow crossed 49,000 for the first time. S&P hit a new all-time high. Baird's Ross Mayfield called it AI enthusiasm "approaching fever pitch" combined with expected rate cuts and fiscal stimulus.

2. Memory Stocks Have a Day

NAND flash prices are set to rise substantially in Q1 as AI demand crushes supply. Morgan Stanley says cloud operators are using more expensive flash-based SSDs because they can't get enough hard drives. This shortage is real and getting worse. This explains moves in $MU and $SNDK recently.

3. Silver won’t stop

Silver closed above $80 for the first time ever. The gold-to-silver ratio hit a 13-year low around 55. Bulls point to 2011 when it touched 30 as evidence there's room to run. Copper also set a new record at $6.01 per pound. Precious metals and equities rallying together.

Market Overview

Index Performance

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Stock Spotlight

Vistra $VST ( ▼ 8.42% ) 
agreed to buy Cogentrix Energy for $4B, adding 10 natural gas plants with 5,500 MW of capacity.

Uber $UBER ( ▲ 0.29% ) 
started on-road testing for a robotaxi service with Lucid and Nuro. Launch expected in SF Bay Area later this year.

Zeta Global $ZETA ( ▼ 2.33% ) 
partnering with OpenAI to power its Athena AI agent for enterprise marketing.

Trane Technologies $TT ( ▼ 0.5% ) 
got hit after Nvidia's Jensen Huang said the new Vera Rubin platform needs "no water chillers" for data centers. Johnson Controls and Modine also fell. One sentence and the cooling trade is in question.

Big Name Updates

Tesla $TSLA ( ▲ 0.66% ) 
fell after Boston Dynamics unveiled its next-gen Atlas humanoid robot with Google DeepMind AI integration. A product version will deploy at Hyundai's EV facility by 2028. The robotics space is getting crowded.

Nvidia $NVDA ( ▲ 1.02% ) 
CEO Jensen Huang outlined continued "very high" AI demand at CES. Vera Rubin ships second half of 2026 with six new chips. Stock barely moved.

AMD $AMD ( ▼ 2.13% ) 
unveiled the Instinct MI440X chips at CES. Expected to be their strongest Nvidia competition yet. Stock fell anyway.

Apple $AAPL ( ▼ 0.59% ) 
slipped after Morgan Stanley predicted its flash memory supplier will raise prices more aggressively to catch up with market rates.

Other Notable Company News

Lockheed Martin $LMT ( ▼ 2.88% ) 
signed a 7-year deal with the Pentagon to triple PAC-3 missile production.

Morgan Stanley $MS ( ▼ 1.65% ) 
filed with the SEC to launch bitcoin and solana ETFs.

Digital Realty $DLR ( ▼ 1.01% ) 
named Deutsche Bank's top data center pick on AI tailwinds.

Sector Watch

Bond Market

10-year held steady around 4.17%. Dollar barely moved.

Policy Watch

Fed Chair Race

Hassett and Warsh tied on Kalshi.

Different animals:

• Hassett runs the National Economic Council (NEC), leans toward Trump's preference for lower rates
  

• Warsh is former Fed, more orthodox

Trump says January for the pick.

Venezuela Reality Check

Trafigura's global head of oil threw cold water on the excitement. His numbers: 10-15 years and hundreds of billions to return Venezuela to 3 million barrels per day. No additional oil coming in 2026. Energy stocks gave back Monday's rally because the timeline doesn't match the hype.

Economic Data

Services PMI missed. 52.5 vs 53.0 expected. S&P Global's read: resilience "showing signs of cracking." December hiring was flat. Friday's jobs report will tell us if this is noise or trend.

Greenland

European leaders pushed back on Trump with a joint statement. Denmark's PM said Arctic security must happen "collectively, in conjunction with NATO allies." No market impact but the tension is escalating.

What to Watch

Friday Jobs Report

December employment is the week's main event. Markets looking for labor market cooling that could influence Fed rate path.

CES Through Thursday

More AI and robotics news coming. Boston Dynamics already made waves with Google DeepMind. Watch for chipmaker commentary.

Venezuelan Bonds

Benchmark notes due October 2026 at 43 cents on the dollar, up from 20 cents in August. Worth watching as a sentiment indicator.

Thanks for reading. 🙂

- John

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