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*                       FIEND'S SUPERBEAR MARKET REPORT                     *

*                               February 13, 2026                           *

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*                       e-mail: fiendbear@fiendbear.com                     *

*                    web address: http://www.fiendbear.com                  *

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Fiend Commentary
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Housing Slips, AI Angst Returns, and the Metals Pay the Price

Thursday wasn’t a normal “rotation” day. It was a true risk-off flush: housing disappointed, tech got hit again on renewed AI anxiety, and anything that had been crowded (or simply liquid) was sold hard.

The housing headline was ugly. Existing-home sales for January fell 8.4% to a 3.91 million annual pace, the weakest since late 2023. It’s a reminder that housing isn’t “healing” so much as it’s stuck: affordability may improve at the margin when mortgage rates dip, but high prices and a cautious consumer still keep activity frozen. A market can’t stay buoyant forever when one of the biggest household wealth engines is running on fumes.

Layer that on top of the second storyline: AI nerves are spreading beyond a single stock or two. The fear isn’t that AI is useless. The fear is that it’s expensive, disruptive, and arriving faster than business models can adapt. That’s a recipe for volatility: companies spend huge sums to keep up, investors demand proof of payoff, and the entire tape becomes hypersensitive to any sign that the “AI boom” is eating its own tail.

Then came the metals.

Gold slipping back below 5,000 and silver tumbling back into the 70s wasn’t a philosophical debate about inflation. It looked like a classic “raise cash” event. When the market wants liquidity, gold and silver get treated less like insurance and more like an ATM. Silver, in particular, tends to behave like a high-beta metal: it can soar in a melt-up, but it can also get crushed when leverage gets squeezed and traders rush for the exits.

Mining shares took it on the chin as well, which is what you’d expect: miners are basically “metals plus stock-market risk,” so when both of those wobble at the same time, the drawdown can be vicious.

The bond market’s reaction was telling. Treasuries caught a strong bid and yields fell, not because rate cuts suddenly became “imminent,” but because markets started acting a little more worried about growth and a little less thrilled about risk. Importantly, the rate-cut story didn’t change dramatically. If anything, this is still the same tug-of-war: softer data pulls people toward “cuts later,” while inflation and policy credibility keep the Fed from moving quickly.

Overnight, the metals are trying to recover, which is what you’d expect after a liquidation-style drop: bargain hunters show up, shorts take profits, and the market bounces. But the bigger takeaway is that this week’s progress has been blunted. The rally isn’t dead, but it’s no longer smooth—and that’s usually what happens when a trade gets too obvious.

For Friday, the key question is simple: was Thursday a one-day trapdoor, or the start of a wider “de-risking” phase?

Watch three things:

1.     Can gold reclaim and hold the 5,000 area again, or does it keep failing on rebounds?

2.     Does silver stabilize, or do we keep seeing violent air pockets?

3.     Do bonds keep rallying (yields falling) on softening growth signals—while stocks and tech struggle to regain leadership?

Because when housing rolls over, tech loses its swagger, and the market starts selling “insurance” to raise cash, it’s often a sign that complacency is finally getting challenged.

 

 

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