Early Look

Friday, December 26, 2025

Another day, another record for the S&P 500 and Dow Industrials on Wednesday as Santa Claus came to town! The S&P 500 index made it a 5^th straight day of gains on Wednesday and look to push higher heading into the weekend. For the week, the S&P 500 was up 1.4%, putting the benchmark on track for its fourth weekly advance in five weeks. The Dow and Nasdaq were also up more than 1% week to date. The S&P 500 is also on track for its 8^th straight monthly advance. U.S. markets were closed Thursday due to the Christmas holiday, are open a full trading day today after closing early at 1:00 pm Wednesday. Investors are also in a historically strong seasonal period, as they await a potential Santa Claus rally. The rally occurs between the last five trading days of the year and the first two of the new year. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) bounces 5% this morning after closing near 52-week highs and down a 5^th day Wednesday. Precious metal prices extending record gains, with silver topping $75 an ounce for the first time overnight with gold and platinum also rising to all-time highs, as bets on U.S. rate cuts and geopolitical jitters fueled investor demand. Spot silver jumped 4% to $74.82 per ounce, after hitting an all-time high of $75.14, extending a meteoric rally that has seen prices soar 158% year-to-date. In Asian markets, The Nikkei Index gained 342 points to 50,750, while the Hang Seng Index was closed. In Europe, the German DAX, FTSE 100, Cac-40 markets were all closed for holiday.

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 288.75 points, or 0.60%, to 48,731.16
• The Nasdaq Composite gained 51.46 points, or 0.22%, to 23,613.31
• The Russell 2000 Index edged higher 6.96 points, or 0.27% to 2,548.08

• Japan’s government proposed record spending for next fiscal year while curbing debt issuance, as Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s cabinet approved a draft budget of $783 billion that addresses market jitters by capping bond issuance and reducing the proportion of the budget financed by fresh debt to the lowest in almost three decades.
• President Trump said the United States carried out an air strike against ISIL fighters in northwest Nigeria on Christmas Day, describing it as a “powerful and deadly strike”.
• Financial Times says the 10 richest US tech founders and CEOs added over $550B of net worth in 2025, ending around $2.5T vs $1.9T to start the year, alongside an S&P 500 up about 18% YTD.

• Russia has delayed a plan to reach an annual liquefied natural gas (LNG) output target of 100 million tons by several years, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak told state TV on Thursday, citing the effect of Western sanctions on its energy industry. Russia’s long-term plans to gain a fifth of the global LNG market by 2030-2035, from 8% currently, have been challenged by sanctions imposed over the conflict in Ukraine, including against the new Arctic LNG 2 plant.

• Nvidia (NVDA) buying Ai chip startup Groq’s assets for about $20B in its largest deal on record. Nvidia is making its largest purchase ever, acquiring assets from nine-year-old chip startup Groq for about $20B. The company was founded by creators of Google’s tensor processing unit, or TPU, which competes with Nvidia for Ai workloads – CNBC
• Samsung Electronics (SSNLF) and SK Hynix are pushing forward their production schedules for sixth-generation high-bandwidth memory to February 2026. Industry sources and South Korean media reports confirm the accelerated timeline – Digitimes.com