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*                       FIEND'S SUPERBEAR MARKET REPORT                     *

*                                 January 22, 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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Much Ado About Tariffs, and the Market Still Jumps

If you felt a sense of déjà vu today, you’re not alone. The latest tariff scare looked dramatic for about a minute—and then it started to evaporate into what markets increasingly treat as a familiar pattern: loud threat, fast walk-back, and a “relief rally” that leaves everyone wondering why we keep doing this.

The uncomfortable question is the one you’re asking: how many times will Wall Street react to the same routine? And the follow-up question is worse: what happens the first time the walk-back doesn’t come quickly enough?

The “headline tax” is becoming a feature, not a bug

What’s happening now isn’t that investors are gullible. It’s that the market has learned to trade the sequence:

1.     Threat hits → uncertainty spikes → money scrambles into hedges

2.     Threat softens → “crisis averted” → risk assets bounce

3.     Repeat

That works until it doesn’t. The danger isn’t the 10th tariff scare. The danger is the 11th—when positioning is crowded, liquidity is thinner, and the market is already leaning the same way.

Metals cooled a bit… but the bigger message didn’t change

As the tariff/Greenland drama eased, safe-haven demand cooled and gold dipped back under $4,800 after printing a fresh record the day before. That’s normal.

What’s not normal is the level: even after the dip, gold is still sitting in territory that would have sounded surreal not long ago, and silver is still hovering near $90.

So yes, the froth came off the top—but the pot is still simmering.

That tells you something important: this isn’t only a “tariff panic” trade anymore. The metals market is acting like it’s pricing a broader theme—policy unpredictability, debt, and an uneasy feeling that the system is being run with more improvisation than discipline.

Rate cuts are drifting further out—and that matters

This is the part many equity bulls don’t love to hear: the Fed may not be coming to the rescue anytime soon. A Reuters poll of economists now expects the Fed to hold rates through the first quarter (and possibly until Powell’s chair term ends in May), largely because growth has remained resilient and inflation is still above target.

So while markets love the idea of easier money later in 2026, the near-term message is: don’t count on quick cuts to cushion every wobble.

That leaves the whole market balancing act looking more precarious:

  • Stocks want optimism
  • Bonds want a term premium
  • The dollar is no longer behaving like a reliable shock absorber
  • Metals keep acting like the “insurance bid” is structural

Everything feels like it’s balancing on a pin

The most revealing part of this week isn’t the tariff threat itself—it’s how quickly everyone snapped back into risk mode, even while a lot of the underlying risks remain unresolved.

That’s a hallmark of a “hyper-bull” environment: high confidence, low cash cushions, and a willingness to treat instability as background noise. The problem is that in that kind of market, small shocks can produce outsized moves because so many players are positioned the same way.

So… now what?

If this really was “much ado about nothing,” the market will move on quickly—and the narrative will revert to “growth is fine, inflation is manageable, and the rally continues.”

But today’s episode still matters because it reminds us that policy uncertainty is not fading—it’s becoming rhythmic. Markets can trade rhythm. They can’t easily trade a broken beat.

Bottom line: The tariff scare may be passing, but the market’s behavior is the real story: a system conditioned to buy the dip on the walk-back—while quietly keeping one hand on the gold and silver insurance policy.

 

 

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