The S&P 500 was down slightly this week, closing Friday at 6,940, which made it up/down/up/down over the last four weeks. On Monday the S&P 500, Dow Industrials, and the small cap Russell 2000 index hit the trifecta as they reached all-time highs as investors looked past news of the Department of Justices criminal investigation into Fed Chair Powell. Before Tuesdays open the December Consumer Price Index report showed that core CPI rose 0.2% on the month and 2.6% on the year, below the 0.3% and 2.8% estimates respectively. However, that news did not bleed over to the markets and the S&P 500 fell slightly. On Wednesday Wall Street posted another losing session pressured by declines in tech and banks after Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Bank of America fell following the release of their earnings reports. Before Thursdays open GDP advanced an annualized 4.3% in Q3 2025, the most in two years and compared to 3.8% in Q2. As such, the S&P 500 gapped up at the open as Taiwan Semiconductor led the advance after a blowout fourth-quarter report, and news that the U.S. and Taiwan reached a trade agreement in which Taiwanese chip and tech companies will invest at least $250 billion in production capacity in America. Bank stocks also got a boost after Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley posted solid fourth-quarter results. On Friday the S&P 500 closed just below flatline, and overall closing down for week. From a technical perspective the S&P 500 seems to be range bound as noted in the first sentence. It did make that new record high on Monday, getting just 14 points away from the 7,000 level. But that resistance showed up again. That said, market performance is broadening as the small cap Russell 2000 has posted a better daily move than the S&P 500 for an 11th straight session on Friday, marking the longest such period since a 13-day streak recorded in June 2008. The markets are closed on Monday for the MLK Jr. holiday, but then well get a flurry of economic news on Thursday and a full week of earnings reports. For TSP TIPS the week started out nicely with all three equity funds (C/S/I) making record highs on Monday. Then the S fund tacked on two more on Wednesday and Thursday. And then the I fund matched that and made another new record on Friday, thats right, on four of the five trading days. All three also have Composite Scores of 100, and on the Performance Ranking (PR) leaderboard the I fund sits at the top. But the S fund has now broken last weeks PR deadlock with the C fund, and the S fund now sits in the runner up position. As such, we recommend new investment mixes for both the Moderate and Conservative models.
The S&P 500 was down slightly this week, closing Friday at 6,940, which made it up/down/up/down over the last four weeks. On Monday the S&P 500, Dow Industrials, and the small cap Russell 2000 index hit the trifecta as they reached all-time highs as investors looked past news of the Department of Justices criminal investigation into Fed Chair Powell. Before Tuesdays open the December Consumer Price Index report showed that core CPI rose 0.2% on the month and 2.6% on the year, below the 0.3% and 2.8% estimates respectively. However, that news did not bleed over to the markets and the S&P 500 fell slightly. On Wednesday Wall Street posted another losing session pressured by declines in tech and banks after Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Bank of America fell following the release of their earnings reports. Before Thursdays open GDP advanced an annualized 4.3% in Q3 2025, the most in two years and compared to 3.8% in Q2. As such, the S&P 500 gapped up at the open as Taiwan Semiconductor led the advance after a blowout fourth-quarter report, and news that the U.S. and Taiwan reached a trade agreement in which Taiwanese chip and tech companies will invest at least $250 billion in production capacity in America. Bank stocks also got a boost after Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley posted solid fourth-quarter results. On Friday the S&P 500 closed just below flatline, and overall closing down for week. From a technical perspective the S&P 500 seems to be range bound as noted in the first sentence. It did make that new record high on Monday, getting just 14 points away from the 7,000 level. But that resistance showed up again. That said, market performance is broadening as the small cap Russell 2000 has posted a better daily move than the S&P 500 for an 11th straight session on Friday, marking the longest such period since a 13-day streak recorded in June 2008. The markets are closed on Monday for the MLK Jr. holiday, but then well get a flurry of economic news on Thursday and a full week of earnings reports. For TSP TIPS the week started out nicely with all three equity funds (C/S/I) making record highs on Monday. Then the S fund tacked on two more on Wednesday and Thursday. And then the I fund matched that and made another new record on Friday, thats right, on four of the five trading days. All three also have Composite Scores of 100, and on the Performance Ranking (PR) leaderboard the I fund sits at the top. But the S fund has now broken last weeks PR deadlock with the C fund, and the S fund now sits in the runner up position. As such, we recommend new investment mixes for both the Moderate and Conservative models.