“I’m in danger…” - me as I literally write this introduction for the week

The S&P 500 popped on Monday while traders did that thing where they pretend they’re calm… but you can literally see the fear sweat dripping through the screen. Everyone’s bracing for a week that’s basically earnings + Fed decision + political chaos… aka the holy trinity of “don’t ask me how my portfolio is doing.”

Live look at me on Friday: 

But before we dive deep into the receipts, go ahead and call your grandpa and make sure you’re in the will because gold just ripped to a new all-time high above $5,100/oz while silver said “hold my beer” and mooned on its biggest day since bankers were snorting credit default swaps (read: 2008). 

Alright, now that’s out of the way, Washington is spiraling again after outrage over federal immigration agents fatally shooting a U.S. citizen in Minnesota for the second time this month. This alone has sparked shutdown chatter because a bunch of Dem senators are saying they won’t approve a $1.2T funding package if it includes money for Homeland Security. Meanwhile, GOP leadership is about to throw hands. Spoiler: This is why rocks are now the hottest things on the market today. 

(Source: Giphy) 

Elsewhere, over 90 S&P companies report this week. More specifically, we’re talking a Magnificent Seven blood ritual week with Meta, Tesla, and Microsoft reporting their sins on Wednesday while the new Google Gemini wrapper Apple is reporting on Thursday. The good news though, is that earnings have been strong so far: 76% of companies beat expectations. Which sounds bullish… until you remember Wall Street doesn’t care if you beat. It cares if you beat hard enough to justify the mind melting valuations (sup, Jensen). 

Add the fact that the Fed drops its first policy decision of the year Wednesday… and this week could be hell. Everyone expects them to hold rates steady… but the market’s still obsessively sniffing for clues on when J-Poww will resume the money printer. Case in point: Right now traders are betting on two quarter-point cuts by the end of 2026. 

(Source: Giphy) 

As for corporate news, Booz Allen Hamilton got smoked, down over 8%, after the Treasury said it canceled all contracts with them. In fact, the backstory on this one is insane. Apparently, Booz employees leaked tax records of Trump, plus billionaires like Bezos and Musk, to the media. Treasury says it had 31 contracts with Booz, worth $4.8M annually and $21M total obligations… and now, they’ve been sent to the gulag. 

Speaking of Donnie Deals, USA Rare Earth popped 15% because Trump touched it (read: took a bigly stake in the company). As a result, they’re issuing 16.1M shares and 17.6M warrants for all the FOMO bag holders. Translation: If 2025 told us anything… it’s that rare earths + government money = traders go feral. That narrative is still holding strong in 2026. Oh, and Bank of America says the chip sector is doing musical chairs… and Nvidia might be the best seat. 

(Source: Imgflip) 

Their angle is basically: the cloud chip giants are trading at a “compelling” valuation, like 0.5x PEG, which is Wall Street math for: “Everyone’s scared of the AI bubble… so the best trade might be buying the obvious thing while people overthink themselves into the grave.” Sounds legit. Of course, we’ll see how that plays out as the week progresses… but at the end of the day, sure, the market went up… but the energy is still rancid.

Meaning, keep your head on the swivel and place yo bets accordingly, friends. This week could get ugly (just sayin’). Until next time… 

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

> GameStop shares move higher after Michael Burry says he’s been buying the stock (CNBC): We’re soooo back… 

> Canadians Are Boycotting US Ski Slopes (Bloomberg): Hand up, this is the most Canadian-like comeback to Trump threatening 100% tariffs of all time… 

> Zoom’s ‘hidden gem’ investment in Anthropic could be worth $2 billion to $4 billion, analysts say (CNBC): Hidden gem like I hide my gems (read: shorts) on Zoom meetings… 

> Microsoft Announces Powerful New Chip For AI Inference (TechCrunch): “Hey Clawdbot, what does AI Inference mean?” 
 

“WTF” Meme of the Day

Real conversation I had with a crypto investor one time… 

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