In a week of light volume, the S&P 500 could not gain any steam as it broke a two-week winning streak, closing down at 6,858. So lets go back 10 days and remember that the S&P 500 had back-to-back daily record highs on 23 December and Christmas Eve. When the markets opened on Friday 26 December, that was the start of a four-day losing streak ending on Thursday, New Years Eve. While not volatile, it was unpleasant to watch 2025 close out this way. On Monday the market was weak in a sector thats been strong in 2025 as precious metals miner Newmont closed down 5.6% after silver futures posted their worst day since 2021. On Tuesday we saw investors polishing their portfolios as they sold losers for tax purposes and take them off their books before year end reporting. On Wednesday we closed out the year with another down day, making it four in a row. However, when you take step back, it was a bullish year with the S&P 500 up for the third year in a row. And then Happy New Year!! Between the bowl games on Friday, the S&P 500 bounced back for a gain before closing at 6,858, a little bit over 1% from its 24 December record high of 6,932. From a technical perspective we appear to be in a two-month range bound market as the S&P 500 closed at 6,890 on 28 October. Since then, the S&P 500 is almost even in the up/down day count. If you look at the S&P 500 monthly line chart, it is flat. But on the weekly Heiken Ashi chart, we still are making higher lows, which is good, but need to improve on the higher highs top end. However, we are still looking for that sustained breakout that takes us above 7,000 to a bullish 2026. That said, when we look overseas, the EFA International ETF continues to make higher highs and higher lows for the last five weeks. For TSP TIPS the I and C funds have identical Composite Scores (CS) of 100, but the I fund is at the top of the Performance Ranking (PR) leaderboard, having made new record highs in six of the last eight days, including this Tuesday and Friday. As such our current investment mixes still looks good and we recommend no allocation changes.
In a week of light volume, the S&P 500 could not gain any steam as it broke a two-week winning streak, closing down at 6,858. So lets go back 10 days and remember that the S&P 500 had back-to-back daily record highs on 23 December and Christmas Eve. When the markets opened on Friday 26 December, that was the start of a four-day losing streak ending on Thursday, New Years Eve. While not volatile, it was unpleasant to watch 2025 close out this way. On Monday the market was weak in a sector thats been strong in 2025 as precious metals miner Newmont closed down 5.6% after silver futures posted their worst day since 2021. On Tuesday we saw investors polishing their portfolios as they sold losers for tax purposes and take them off their books before year end reporting. On Wednesday we closed out the year with another down day, making it four in a row. However, when you take step back, it was a bullish year with the S&P 500 up for the third year in a row. And then Happy New Year!! Between the bowl games on Friday, the S&P 500 bounced back for a gain before closing at 6,858, a little bit over 1% from its 24 December record high of 6,932. From a technical perspective we appear to be in a two-month range bound market as the S&P 500 closed at 6,890 on 28 October. Since then, the S&P 500 is almost even in the up/down day count. If you look at the S&P 500 monthly line chart, it is flat. But on the weekly Heiken Ashi chart, we still are making higher lows, which is good, but need to improve on the higher highs top end. However, we are still looking for that sustained breakout that takes us above 7,000 to a bullish 2026. That said, when we look overseas, the EFA International ETF continues to make higher highs and higher lows for the last five weeks. For TSP TIPS the I and C funds have identical Composite Scores (CS) of 100, but the I fund is at the top of the Performance Ranking (PR) leaderboard, having made new record highs in six of the last eight days, including this Tuesday and Friday. As such our current investment mixes still looks good and we recommend no allocation changes.