Goodbye, sweet prince. It was fun while it lasted…

Well, instead of hopping on the Instagram Reel trend and recapping 2025 with all the good memories, all the new baby mamas, and his most viral tweets of the year… Elon decided to kick off 2026 by personally stress-testing the diamond hands of Tesla shareholders.

Turns out Tesla’s “transparent” guidance from last week wasn’t spin or expectation-setting… it was a straight admission that the numbers were about to speak louder than Elon ever could. Tesla wasn’t playing around, and they weren’t trying to soften the blow.

For the second straight year, sales fell. And the reasons were painfully straightforward: Elon’s ex-BFF (read: Donnie Politics) pulled the plug on those sweet federal EV tax credits, and Chinese automaker BYD griddied in and officially took the throne for global EV sales. Tesla bros, gather round and repeat after me: we are COOKED.

The damage report was fugly. Elon & Co. posted a 15% drop year over year, and the stock responded by sliding about 2% to kick off the first trading day of 2026 as if to say “Happy New Years, shareholders, here’s a kick in the balls.”

So what should we expect next? I’m not a betting man per se, but I’d pencil in at least 100 additional AI robot army mentions to help distract from the fact that EV excitement is cooling faster than a Cybertruck delivery timeline.

Now, onto the indexes, because if today is any indication of what 2026 has in store… whew. The S&P 500 fought for its life just to finish barely green (+0.2%). The Dow showed some actual strength (+0.6%). And the Nasdaq got kicked to the curb (+0.5%).

I know on the surface it doesn’t look all that bad… but if it weren't for the usual chip stocks bursting out of the phone booth like Superman - hello Nvidia (+1%) and Micron (+10%) - today would’ve been a big fat L.

But don’t worry, CNBC ran a poll and, shockingly, it didn’t ruin everyone’s day. The average S&P 500 year-end target came in at 7,629, implying 11.4% upside. 

I realize that’s a number a bunch of Ivy League Fund Managers pulled out of their butt… but considering AI spending has been pushing this market forward like a stubborn shopping cart for the last three years (and no real chickens have come home to roost yet) double-digit gains would feel like a win.

Lastly, after opening Google Trends and realizing his name wasn’t absolutely carpet-bombing the internet to start 2026, Sam Altman decided this would not stand. 

So, like any responsible tech messiah desperate for engagement, he quietly leaked to The Information that he might be in talks to buy Pinterest. To be clear, there wasn’t a single press release and it’s just a rumor at this point… but that was all Wall Street (and WallStreetBets traders) needed to make Pinterest pop 3%. 

And before I forget, Happy New Year from The Final Tally. We’ve got plenty of good content coming your way in 2026, and fingers crossed it’s a strong year for the markets and your portfolio. Either way, we’ll be here to deliver solid insights and keep you entertained along the way.

If you read all of this, congrats for having a 10 second attention span (better than me). As always, here’s our heatmap for today.

Market Gossip

>107% tariffs on Italian pasta no longer set to take effect (Yahoo Finance): If you need any more proof Tony Soprano and the rest of the Italian Mob got to Donald, look no further…

>Berkshire Hathaway shares dip as Warren Buffett exits and Greg Abel era begins (CNBC): Can we at least let him finish orientation?

>Citadel’s Flagship Hedge Fund Climbed 10.2% Last Year (Bloomberg): Reminder: the S&P does this without a corner office.

>Tom Brady’s 23-year age gap to Alix Earle sparks discussion after duo seen partying together on NYE (New York Post): Seems as if ole Tom is getting dating advice from coach Belichick.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Tesla and Google as mentioned in the article.