Baltic
Dry Index. 1882 +5 Brent
Crude 60.75
Spot
Gold 4342 Spot Silver 72.27
U
S 2 Year Yield 3.47 unch.
US
Federal Debt. 38.559 trillion US GDP 31.030 trillion
January
3, 1777. General George Washington's Revolutionary Army defeats
British forces at the Battle of Princeton, New Jersey
In the stock casinos
and most commodities, an indifferent start to 2926.
Next week’s action
from silver to stocks to crude oil, will provide better guidance to 2026.
S&P
500 closes higher on first trading day of 2026 as chip stocks offer small boost
to the market
Updated
Fri, Jan 2 2026 4:19 PM EST
The S&P 500 closed slightly
higher on Friday, the first trading day of 2026, as gains in semiconductor
names kept the index afloat.
The
benchmark closed up 0.19% at 6,858.47, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.03%
to finish at 23,235.63. The two had been solidly positive earlier in the day,
with the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq trading higher by 0.7% and 1.5%
at their peaks, respectively. The Dow Jones Industrial Average moved
up 319.10 points, or 0.66%, to settle at 48,382.39.
Friday’s
gain marks a reversal from the first-day trading trend of the last few years.
The S&P 500 finished lower on the first day of trading for each of the last
three years. Going back to the 1950s, there is no discernible trend, with the
first day finishing positive about 48% of the time, according to Bespoke
Investment Group.
Key
chip stocks such as Nvidia and Micron Technology climbed in
the session. The former rose more than 1%, and the latter popped more than 10%.
Both artificial intelligence-related names were big winners in 2025 — Nvidia
jumped about 39%, while Micron surged more than 240%.
But
other areas in tech outside of chips suffered some losses. Notably, software
stocks came under pressure, as Salesforce dropped
more than 4% and CrowdStrike declined
more than 3%. Palantir
Technologies and Microsoft pulled
back as well.
Additionally, Tesla shares were more than
2% lower after the company’s fourth-quarter
deliveries missed analyst estimates.
Tech
was the best trade of 2025, leading the broader market to sharp gain as
investors continued to pile into AI names. The S&P 500 gained more than 16%
last year, marking its third straight annual advance. The Nasdaq jumped more
than 20% last year, and the 30-stock Dow advanced around 13%. The three
benchmarks hit record highs last year.
“We
think that you will have this ongoing rotation back and forth between tech and
non-tech, but that overall we’ll drift higher,” said Jay Hatfield,
Infrastructure Capital Advisors CEO. Hatfield, who has an 8,000 year-end target
for the S&P 500, said the rally will be “better balanced” as regional banks
outperform and tech stocks with expensive valuations such as Tesla start to
lag.
“There
are themes besides tech that are very likely to work this year,” he continued.
Wall
Street strategists expect more gains for the U.S. stock market in 2026.
The CNBC
Market Strategist Survey shows the average S&P 500 target for the
year is 7,629, which implies upside of 11.4%.
Friday’s
session had some bright spots elsewhere in the broader market. Shares of Wayfair jumped around 6%,
while RH increased
roughly 8% after President Donald Trump on New Year’s Eve postponed
tariff increases on upholstered furniture, kitchen cabinets and
vanities for a year. The order specifically delays a 30% duty on upholstered
furniture and 50% levy on kitchen cabinets and vanities, keeping in place a 25%
tariff on those goods that was imposed back in September.
Stock
market news for Jan. 2, 2026
Oil
prices edge lower after biggest annual loss since 2020
Published
Thu, Jan 1 2026 9:32 PM EST Updated Fri, Jan 2 2026 2:54 PM EST
Oil prices
edged lower on the first day of trade in 2026 after registering their biggest
annual loss since 2020 as investors weighed oversupply concerns against
geopolitical risks including the war
in Ukraine and Venezuela exports.
Brent crude futures dropped 10
cents on Friday to close at $60.75 a barrel,
while U.S. West Texas
Intermediate crude also fell 10 cents to settle at $57.32.
Russia and Ukraine traded
allegations of attacks on civilians on New Year’s Day despite talks
overseen by U.S. President Donald Trump that are aimed at
bringing an end to the nearly four-year-old war.
Kyiv has
been intensifying strikes against Russian energy infrastructure in recent
months, aiming to cut off Moscow’s sources of financing for its
military campaign in Ukraine.
Elsewhere,
the Trump administration’s efforts to increase pressure on Venezuelan
President Nicolas Maduro continued with Wednesday’s imposition of
sanctions on four companies and associated oil tankers that it said
were operating in Venezuela’s oil sector.
In
the Middle East, a crisis between OPEC producers Saudi
Arabia and the United Arab Emirates over Yemen has
deepened after flights were halted at Aden’s airport on Thursday. This came
before a virtual meeting between the OPEC+ group comprising
the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies
on January 4.
Traders
widely expect OPEC+ to continue its pause on output increases in the first
quarter, said Sparta Commodities analyst June Goh.
“2026
will be an important year on assessing OPEC+ decisions for balancing supply,” she
said, adding that China would continue to build crude stockpiles in
the first half, providing a floor for oil prices.
2025
losses
The
Brent and WTI benchmarks recorded annual losses of nearly 20% in 2025, the
steepest since 2020, as concerns about oversupply and tariffs outweighed
geopolitical risks. It was the third straight year of losses for Brent, the
longest such streak on record.
“As
of now, we are expecting a fairly boring year for (Brent) oil prices,
range-bound around $60-65 a barrel,” said DBS energy
analyst Suvro Sarkar.
Oil
prices edge lower after biggest annual loss since 2020
In the nasty pasta
war, did Italy’s fagottini just beat Uncle Scam’s?
U.S.
Slashes Proposed Tariffs on Italian Pasta
Exporters had feared they
would have to pull out of the U.S. market
Jan. 1, 2026 2:51 pm ET
The U.S. has stepped back from imposing
trade-killing duties on Italian pasta makers, meaning that Italian-made pasta
will most likely continue to be available in U.S. stores.
Previously, the U.S. Commerce Department had said it
would slap antidumping duties of 92% on Italy’s main pasta exporters as soon as January—a measure that
Italian pasta makers said would force them to pull out of the U.S. market.
Italy’s government and the affected companies have been lobbying the Trump
administration for weeks to revise the decision.
The Commerce Department told the companies late on
Wednesday that it would sharply reduce the antidumping measures, according to
an industry representative and Italy’s foreign ministry. The two biggest pasta
exporters to the U.S., La Molisana and Garofalo, will now face duties of 2.3%
and 13.9%, respectively. Eleven other Italian pasta makers will face a 9.1%
tariff.
“This is a great step forward. In Italy, we are
finally working as a team,” said Cosimo Rummo, chief executive of Rummo
Pasta, one of the affected companies.
In addition, the pasta companies are subject to the
U.S.’s 15% tariff on imports from the European Union imposed last year by the Trump
administration.
The antidumping review is continuing, and the
department’s final report is due by March 11.
The department’s earlier decision in September
shocked the Italian pasta industry, which has annual sales of around $770
million to the U.S. Defending pasta exports became a matter of national pride
for the government of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, which has
sought to position itself as one of the Trump administration’s closest allies
in Europe.
Some Italian officials and pasta executives
suspected the protectionist policies of the White House might have influenced
the severity of the preliminary decision. U.S. officials denied that, saying
the proposed antidumping duties were set according to purely technical
criteria.
The Commerce Department on Thursday said that its
latest analysis “indicates that Italian pasta makers have addressed many of
Commerce’s concerns raised in the preliminary determination, and reflects
Commerce’s commitment to a fair, transparent process.”
More
U.S. Slashes Proposed Tariffs on Italian Pasta - WSJ
In other news.
China Signals It Won’t Give an Inch to the U.S. in
Latin America
Beijing doubles down on its ambitions for
the region just as Trump tries to assert dominance over the Western Hemisphere
Dec. 31, 2025 11:00 pm ET
China intends to keep playing in the U.S.
backyard, Latin America.
The Trump administration took veiled
swipes at China in its national-security
strategy with
the vow to “restore American pre-eminence in the Western Hemisphere” and “deny
non-Hemispheric competitors.”
Less than a week after the release of the
U.S. strategy in December, Beijing issued a little-noticed policy paper on
Latin America and the Caribbean that geopolitical analysts say foreshadows more
U.S.-China jostling for regional influence.
“China has always stood in solidarity
through thick and thin with the Global South, including Latin America and the
Caribbean,” said the 6,700-word policy paper, China’s first on the region in
almost a decade. The paper cites how a “significant shift is taking place in
the international balance of power,” terminology Chinese leader Xi Jinping uses
to allege that the era of U.S. global supremacy is ending.
China shadows each major challenge
President Trump has taken on in Latin America, from degrading the
Venezuelan regime to reasserting American dominance at the Panama Canal. It is
a counterpoint—albeit a moderate one—to what Beijing considers encirclement of
its territory by the U.S. system of military alliances throughout Asia.
“Great power competition in the region has
only just begun,” according to an analysis of China’s Latin American stance by
the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The Washington-based think tank said
Beijing’s policy plan demonstrated its intention to expand diplomatic and
economic ties in Latin America, and position itself as an alternative to the
U.S. China is gaining political leverage in the region by spending money on
infrastructure projects and extracting critical minerals, energy and other
natural resources. This is done while its diplomats engage local political
power brokers via its embassies.
Beijing now claims 24 signatories in the
region to its Belt and Road Initiative, compared
with none before 2017.
It has also displaced the U.S. as the biggest trading partner with many Latin
American countries. “China’s strategy is basically not giving an inch,” said
Ryan Berg, a co-author of the CSIS analysis.
Trump’s
muscle-flexing at the Venezuelan regime of Nicolás Maduro is
providing an early test of China’s priorities and its claim that it has an
“all-weather strategic partnership” with the country. Beijing has denounced as
illegal hegemony and “unilateral bullying” the U.S. military buildup around
Venezuela, including the interception of oil tankers that are allegedly part of
a sanctions-busting ghost fleet that also transports oil to China.
More
China Signals It
Won’t Give an Inch to the U.S. in Latin America - WSJ
Global Inflation/Stagflation/Recession
Watch.
Given
our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians,
inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
Hmmm?
US
health insurance costs to rise by 114% for millions as subsidies expire
More
than 20 million people in the United States will face sharply higher health
insurance costs as of January 1 after enhanced tax credits that helped
enrollees in the Affordable Care Act afford coverage expired overnight. The
expiration of the subsidies will mostly affect families, small business owners
and self-employed workers.
Issued
on: 01/01/2026 - 18:11
Enhanced
tax credits that have helped reduce the cost of health insurance for the vast
majority of Affordable Care Act (ACA, also known as "Obamacare")
enrollees expired overnight, cementing higher health costs for millions of
people in the United States at the start of the new year.
The
change affects a diverse cross-section of the population who don’t get their
health insurance from an employer and don’t qualify for Medicaid or
Medicare – a group that includes many self-employed workers, small
business owners, farmers and ranchers.
On
average, the more than 20 million subsidised enrollees in the Affordable Care
Act programme are seeing their premium costs rise by 114 percent in 2026,
according to an analysis by the healthcare research nonprofit
KFF.
The
subsidies were first given to Affordable Care Act enrollees in 2021 as a
temporary measure to help US residents get through the Covid-19 pandemic.
Democrats in power at the time then extended them, pushing the expiration date
to the start of 2026. Some lower-income enrollees received health care
with no premiums, and high earners paid no more than 8.5 percent of their
income. Eligibility for middle-class earners was also expanded.
Democrats forced
a 43-day government shutdown over the issue, demanding the health
subsidies be extended before they agreed to a new Republican budget. Some
Republicans also called for a bipartisan solution to save their 2026 political
aspirations, given the ACA's popularity – two-thirds
of Americans favour the system, according to KFF.
But
while congressional Republicans acknowledged the issue needed to be addressed,
they refused to put it to a vote until late in the year. A House vote expected
in January could offer another chance, but success is far from guaranteed.
Health analysts
have predicted the expiration of the subsidies will drive many of the 24
million total Affordable Care Act enrollees – especially younger and healthier
Americans – to forgo health insurance coverage altogether.
Over
time, that could make the programme more expensive for the older, sicker
population that remains.
Rising
costs across the board
The
surging healthcare prices come alongside an overall increase in health costs in
the US, which are further driving up out-of-pocket costs in many plans.
It
also comes at the start of a high-stakes midterm election year, with
affordability – including the cost of health care – topping the list
of voters’ concerns.
“It
really bothers me that the middle class has moved from a squeeze to a full
suffocation, and they continue to just pile on and leave it up to us,” said
37-year-old single mom Katelin Provost, whose healthcare costs are set to jump.
“I’m incredibly disappointed that there hasn’t been more action.”
Some
enrollees, like Salt Lake City freelance filmmaker and adjunct professor Stan
Clawson, have absorbed the extra expense. Clawson said he was paying just under
$350 a month for his premiums last year, a number that will jump to nearly $500
a month this year. It’s a strain for the 49-year-old, but one he’s willing to
take on because he needs health insurance as someone
who lives with paralysis from a spinal cord injury.
Others,
like Provost, are dealing with steeper hikes. The social worker’s monthly
premium payment is increasing from $85 a month to nearly $750.
More
US health
insurance costs to rise by 114% for millions as subsidies expire - France 24
Student
loan forgiveness is taxable again: Start planning for the ‘tax bomb,’ CFP says
Published
Thu, Jan 1 2026 10:10 AM EST
Student loan borrowers
whose debt is canceled in 2026 or later may face a significant tax bill.
A
law that shielded student loan
forgiveness from
taxation at the federal level — part of the American Rescue Plan Act
of 2021 — expired on Dec. 31, 2025. President Donald Trump’s “big
beautiful bill”
did not extend or make permanent that provision.
As
a result, certain borrowers who’ve recently received education debt
cancellation or expect to do so in the future should take steps as soon as
possible to be prepared, experts say.
The
taxation change applies to the Department of Education’s income-driven
repayment plans,
or IDRs. Enacted
in the 90s,
IDR plans cap people’s monthly payments at a share of their discretionary
income and excuse any remaining debt after a certain period, typically 20 or 25
years.
“A
lot of people are very close to their 20- or 25-year mark,” said Ethan Miller,
a certified financial planner and founder of Planning for Progress in the
Washington area. Miller specializes in student loans.
“Those
are the folks who really need to be thinking about how the so-called tax bomb
... is going to impact them,” he said.
Public Service
Loan Forgiveness,
a program for government and nonprofit employees that eliminates federal loans
after 120 qualifying monthly payments, remains tax-free.
The
federal tax bill on student loan forgiveness could be substantial. The average
loan balance for borrowers enrolled in an IDR plan is around $57,000, said
higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz.
For
those in the 22% tax bracket, having that amount forgiven would trigger a tax
burden of more than $12,000, Kantrowitz estimated. Lower earners, or those in
the 12% tax bracket, would still owe around $7,000.
Plus,
some borrowers could incur state tax liability on their forgiven balance,
experts say.
More
than 42 million Americans hold student loans, and the outstanding debt
exceeds $1.6
trillion.
More
Student loan
forgiveness is taxable again: How to prepare
Technology
Update.
With events happening
fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.
A 30-Year Superconductivity Mystery Just Took a Sharp Turn
December 31, 2025
New research sharpens understanding of the hidden symmetry in a
mysterious superconductor.
Superconductors are materials that allow electrical current to
flow without any resistance, a property that typically appears only at
extremely low temperatures. While most known superconductors follow established
theoretical frameworks, strontium ruthenate, Sr₂RuO₄, has remained difficult to
explain since researchers first identified its superconducting behavior in
1994.
The material is widely regarded as one of the purest and most
thoroughly examined examples of unconventional superconductivity. Even so,
scientists have not reached agreement on the exact nature of the electron
pairing within Sr₂RuO₄, including its symmetry and internal structure, which
are central to understanding how its superconductivity arises.
Probing Superconductivity Through Strain
One effective way to uncover the character of a superconducting
state is to observe how the temperature at which superconductivity begins,
known as Tc, shifts when mechanical strain is applied.
Stretching, squeezing, or twisting a crystal can reveal important differences
because distinct superconducting states respond to these distortions in unique
ways.
Earlier investigations, particularly those using ultrasound
techniques, pointed to the possibility that Sr₂RuO₄ supports a two-component
superconducting state. This more intricate form of superconductivity could
allow unusual effects, including internal magnetic fields or the presence of
multiple superconducting regions within the same material. A defining feature
of a true two-component state, however, is a strong sensitivity to shear
strain.
A New Approach Using Shear Strain
This inspired a team of researchers from Kyoto University to
use strain to understand the true nature of the superconducting state of
Sr₂RuO₄. The researchers developed a technique that allowed them to apply three
distinct kinds of shear strain to extremely thin Sr₂RuO₄ crystals. Shear strain
is a type of distortion that shifts part of the crystal sideways, similar to
sliding the top of a deck of cards relative to the bottom.
The strain levels were carefully measured using high-resolution
optical imaging down to 30 degrees K (−243 degrees C). The key discovery: the
superconducting temperature hardly changed at all. Any shift in Tc was
smaller than 10 millikelvin per percent strain, effectively below the detection
limit.
These results show that shear strain has virtually no effect on
the temperature at which Sr₂RuO₄ becomes superconducting, ruling out several
proposed theories and setting strict limits on what kinds of superconducting
states are still possible. The findings instead point toward a one-component
superconducting state, or perhaps even more unusual, still-unexplored
superconducting states that behave differently from conventional theoretical
expectations.
“Our study represents a major step toward solving one of the
longest-standing mysteries in condensed-matter physics,” says first author
Giordano Mattoni, Toyota Riken – Kyoto University Research Center.
An Ongoing Mystery and Broader Impact
This study tightens the search for the correct explanation of how
superconductivity occurs in this compound. Yet a puzzle remains: earlier
ultrasound measurements clearly showed a strong effect linked to shear, while
the new direct strain measurements do not. Understanding why these two methods
disagree is now a major open question.
Beyond Sr₂RuO₄, the strain-control technique developed in this
study can be applied to other superconductors that exhibit multi-component
behavior, such as UPt₃, as well as other materials with intricate phase
transitions.
Reference: “Direct evidence for the absence of coupling between
shear strain and superconductivity in Sr2RuO4” by Giordano Mattoni, Thomas
Johnson, Atsutoshi Ikeda, Shubhankar Paul, Jake Bobowski, Manfred Sigrist and
Yoshiteru Maeno, 16 December 2025, Nature Communications.
DOI:
10.1038/s41467-025-67307-1
Funding: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
A 30-Year
Superconductivity Mystery Just Took a Sharp Turn
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt Clocks (usdebtclock.org)
Exponent
Calculator
Enter
values into any two of the input fields to solve for the third.
This
weekend’s music diversion, J. S. Bach showing off again. Approx. 9 minutes.
Alison
Balsom joue Bach (Concerto en ré majeur).wmv
Alison Balsom joue
Bach (Concerto en ré majeur).wmv - YouTube
Next,
shipping news. Approx. 13 minutes.
Is
the Red Sea Reopening? | Why Is the EU Escorting but Not the US Navy? |
Disruptions Expected
Is the Red Sea
Reopening? | Why Is the EU Escorting but Not the US Navy? | Disruptions
Expected
Finally, Scotland’s Stirling Castle. Approx. 3
minutes.
Stirling, Scotland: Stirling Castle - Rick
Steves’ Europe Travel Guide - Travel Bite
Stirling,
Scotland: Stirling Castle - Rick Steves’ Europe Travel Guide - Travel Bite -
YouTube
Civilized countries generally adopt gold or silver or both as
money.
Alfred Marshall, economist.
