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*                       FIEND'S SUPERBEAR MARKET REPORT                     *

*                                 January 12, 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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50,000 on Deck, 4,600 Gold: When Markets Cheer and Hedge at the Same Time

The new week opens with a strange split-screen: U.S. stocks are still flirting with history, while gold and silver are acting like history is about to get messy.

The Dow closed last week just a few hundred points below 50,000 — close enough that “inevitable” is starting to sound like the consensus view rather than a bold call. Yet overnight, the mood is less carefree than the index level suggests. Gold surged to a fresh record above $4,600, silver hit another record near $84, and even platinum and palladium caught a strong bid. When that many “insurance” assets are making new highs at once, it’s worth asking what exactly the market is insuring against.

Jobs were “mixed,” but the trend is clearer than the headline

Friday’s jobs report looked like a classic example of why markets can argue both sides:

  • Payroll growth slowed to roughly 50,000 jobs in December.
  • The unemployment rate dipped to 4.4%, which sounds reassuring at first glance.
  • Wages stayed firm, running near a 3.8% year-over-year pace.

So the labor market isn’t collapsing. But it’s also not healthy in the way a record-stock market usually implies. Hiring momentum is weak, job growth is narrow, and some cyclical areas (construction, retail, manufacturing) are shedding jobs. It’s a “stall speed” economy: still flying, but with less margin for error.

That matters because 2026 optimism is already built on an assumption that policy will stay supportive if growth weakens further. If jobs drift from “stall speed” into “stall,” the Fed will face pressure — but the market may not like the reason.

The Powell investigation changes the tone, not just the headlines

The bigger Monday catalyst isn’t a chart — it’s an institutional question.

Reports say federal prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into Fed Chair Jerome Powell tied to the renovation of the Fed’s headquarters, and Powell has framed the move as political pressure on the central bank. Regardless of where the facts land, markets hate one thing above all: uncertainty about the rules of the game.

This is one reason the reaction looks so “textbook”:

  • the dollar wobbles,
  • equity futures get nervous,
  • and gold catches a powerful safe-haven bid.

It’s not simply an “inflation trade.” It’s a confidence trade — and confidence is hard to regain once it starts leaking.

Iran and oil: the market wants disinflation, but geopolitics doesn’t cooperate

Iran remains a live wire. Demonstrations and a hardening crackdown are raising the odds of retaliation, escalation, or supply disruption — the kinds of risks that can make oil jump quickly, even if the market has been leaning toward a “cheap oil” narrative.

At the same time, traders are also weighing the possibility of more Venezuelan supply after the removal of Maduro. That creates a tug-of-war: one storyline says oil should be capped, the other says the Middle East can override any neat forecast.

The important point is that markets are trying to price a future where inflation cools and money gets easier. That can happen. But geopolitics is how that kind of plan gets interrupted.

Why rate-cut odds are slipping in the near term — and why metals don’t care

Even with softer job growth, the market is still not convinced the Fed is cutting immediately. Odds of a January cut remain low, and expectations for cuts early in the year have been trimmed. Some major banks are now pushing their “next cut” call further out into mid-2026.

Yet metals are ripping anyway.

That’s the tell.

When gold and silver climb even as near-term cut expectations soften, it often means the bid isn’t just about next meeting probabilities. It’s about the longer arc: debt, credibility, geopolitics, and the suspicion that the next real policy response — whenever it comes — will have to be bigger than the last one.

The Dow can still hit 50,000 — but the psychology around it is the real story

Yes, 50,000 looks like a magnet. It’s close, it’s headline-friendly, and it’s exactly the kind of round-number milestone that draws in performance-chasing money.

But milestones also have a habit of revealing what’s underneath the rally:

  • If the Dow tags 50,000 while metals are still screaming higher, that’s not a “healthy risk-on” message — it’s a “party plus insurance” message.
  • If the Dow tags 50,000 and then fades quickly, it’s a sign the market is running out of incremental buyers and starting to trade on exhaustion rather than enthusiasm.

Either way, the combination we’re seeing — record stocks alongside record metals — is not normal. It’s a sign that someone, somewhere, is hedging a future that doesn’t look as smooth as the index suggests.

What to watch this week

1.     CPI and inflation reads: the market wants calm inflation so it can keep dreaming about easier policy.

2.     Any escalation signals out of Iran: geopolitical shocks can flip the inflation narrative overnight.

3.     Powell / Fed independence headlines: policy credibility is oxygen for both bonds and currencies.

4.     Whether 50,000 becomes a launchpad or a ceiling: the “how,” not the “if,” will matter.

Bottom line: The market is acting like 50,000 is inevitable — and the metals market is acting like something else is inevitable too. The question for 2026 is which inevitability arrives first.

 

 

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