Weekly Market Update for January 9, 2026

by Gavyn Jensen-Schneider, Research Associate

Geopolitics dominated news headlines this week, though financial markets were largely unimpacted as the S&P 500 coasted to a new record high on Friday. The S&P 500 finished the week up +1.57%, while the Nasdaq grew +1.88%. The 10-Year Treasury yield, an interest rate indicator, closed at 4.17%, down -2 basis points (bps) from last week. The 6-Month US Treasury, a favorite of our US Treasury strategy, fell -2 bps to 3.59%.

A slew of labor market indicators were released this week, coming from private firms and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. JOLTS job openings of 7,146k were well below Wall Street expectations of 7,700k. The Challenger Job Cuts report on Thursday was positive, as job cuts fell to their lowest level in 17 months. Friday saw the release of the December employment report, including the unemployment rate and nonfarm payrolls. The unemployment rate fell to 4.4% from 4.5% in November as the economy added +50k jobs across the month. While the unemployment rate was better-than-expected, the job gains from nonfarm payrolls fell just short of Wall Street’s +55k consensus estimate. Overall, the economy added +49k jobs each month during 2025, down from +168K a month the year prior.

Investor conferences in the new year kicked off this week with CES Las Vegas, which focuses on consumer electronics. AI technology was at the forefront of the conversation, with executives from chipmakers Nvidia and AMD headlining different nights of the multi-day conference. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang discussed the production of their most powerful AI processor chip, Vera Rubin, which is set to ship in the second half of 2026. These chips outperform the previous generation Blackwell chips in model “training” by 3.5 times, and in model “inference” by 5 times. The increase in processing capacity is key for expanding the capabilities of leading AI models.

The onslaught of earnings reports begins anew next week, with the big banks—JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and more—set to kick off the Q4 results. On the data side, December’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation report is set for Tuesday, followed by the Producer Price Index (PPI) inflation report on Wednesday. This will be the first uninterrupted set of inflation data since the August CPI report, as the CPI and PPI reports from the past three months were either delayed, partially collected, or canceled altogether.

On Thursday, Jared attended an Economic Club of Minnesota event where U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent shared his perspective with the group on the current economic environment, policy initiatives, and how various forces are at play in the markets. He noted that a new Federal Reserve Chair, who will replace Chair Powell after his term ends in May, will likely be announced within the next two weeks or so. It is commonly believed this replacement may push for quicker reductions in benchmark interest rates.