Will the S&P 400 MidCaps and the S&P 600 SmallCaps (i.e., SMidCaps) finally outperform the S&P 500 LargeCaps this year? Maybe. They’re overdue to do so. However, we think investors would be better off focusing on select SMidCaps sectors rather than the broad indexes. We would

It’s been a good year so far, even though only two trading days have gone by in 2026. The S&P 500, DJIA, and Nasdaq all rose today despite the crisis in Venezuela over the weekend. The DJIA hit a record high. We’ve

We expected the first half of 2026 to be volatile for stocks. It’s only January 4, and we can add Venezuela to our list of unsettling developments. Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan president captured by the United States on Saturday, is

With the holidays behind us, the first full trading week of the year is a busy one on the data front. The big focus, naturally, is on the December employment report. It’s the first “full” release since the government

Goldman Sachs has been pushing the view that the stock market’s return over the next 10 years is likely to be very low, at only around 3% per year. We disagree. Admittedly, there’s logic to that forecast: The forward

Happy 2026! It should be the seventh year of our Roaring 2020s scenario, with three more to go. We first wrote about this scenario on August 11, 2020, in our Morning Briefing titled “Another Roaring Twenties May Still Be Ahead.” We predicted,

The Emerging Markets (EM) MSCI stock price index may outperform both the US MSCI stock price index and the Developed Countries ex-US MSCI stock price index in 2026. It outperformed the former in 2025 but underperformed the latter and many of its constituents. The broader EM outperformance we

The AI plot thickens: Chinese scientists have unveiled an optical computing chip that outperformed Nvidia’s top GPU by over a hundredfold in speed and energy efficiency—particularly for generative tasks such as video production and image synthesis. (Incidentally, YRI is working with a Korean

Productivity must be booming. Real GDP jumped 4.3% (saar) in Q3, following a 3.8% increase in Q2. Over the same period, aggregate hours worked in private industry was flat (saar). Productivity must have increased by more than 3.5% over

Mistletoe is relevant to several cultures. In the advent of the Christian era, mistletoe in the Western world became associated with Christmas as a decoration under which lovers are expected to kiss, as well as with protection from witches and demons. Let’s hope its

Are the soaring prices of precious metals a warning sign that the Roaring 2020s might end in 2026? We don’t think so. However, we have been considering what might be driving the recent spike in precious metals prices. On

This looks to be a mercifully quiet holiday week that nonetheless offers a smattering of key data releases. Chief among them will be Q3’s GDP and December’s Consumer Confidence Index survey. Clearly, the economic fog caused by the government

We believe the S&P 500 has been in a Santa Claus rally since it bottomed on November 20 at 6538 (chart). It is up 4.5% since then through Friday’s close. Over the past 10 years, the average increase in

Now that the government shutdown is over, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is releasing economic indicators again. However, the quality of the latest releases is an issue. Today’s lower-than-expected November CPI inflation report boosted stock and bond prices

We are declaring “Mission Accomplished” on our 7000-year-end target for the S&P 500. The index rose to a record high of 6901 on December 11. That’s close enough for us and might be the high for this year. We aren’t ruling