Current Affairs/Investing./Television Media

Interesting TACs of the Week (January 5 – January 11, 2026)

Posted on by MV

Summary – A top-down review of interesting calls and comments made last week in Treasuries, monetary policy, economics, stocks, bonds & commodities. TAC is our acronym for Tweets, Articles, & Clips – our basic inputs for this article.

Editor’s Note: In this series of articles, we include important or interesting Tweets, Articles, Video Clips with our comments. This is an article that expresses our personal opinions about comments made on Television, Tweeter, and in Print. It is NOT intended to provide any investment advice of any type whatsoever. No one should base any investing decisions or conclusions based on anything written in or inferred from this article. Macro Viewpoints & its affiliates expressly disclaim all liability in respect to actions taken based on any or all of the information in this article. Investing is a serious matter and all investment decisions should only be taken after a detailed discussion with your investment advisor and should be subject to your objectives, suitability requirements and risk tolerance.

 

1.Markets Last Week

You take one weekend off to celebrate the New Year & College Football playoff and the world moves! But the markets moved along just like it was 2025, or a better version of 2025.

US Indices:

  • VIX flat at 14.48; Dow up 2.3%; SPX up 1.6%; RSP up 2.5%; NDX up 2.2%; SMH up  4.3%; RUT up 4.6%; MDY up 3.3%; XLU down 1.6%;

What do the cognoscenti say?

  • Subu Trade@SubuTrade – Jan 8 – $SPX is up over the first 5 days of this year. What’s even better? The NASDAQ 100 is up too. In years with positive starts, the NASDAQ finished higher 25 of 27 times, averaging +25% for the year.

And,

  • Seth Golden@SethCL – 🚨One of the biggest RISK-ON signals – When updated, the 8-Bellwethers will have hit 52-week highs in Q4 2025, including the 8-Bellwether Advance/Decline Line. S&P 500 has never produced bear mrkt with more than 5 of 8-Bellwethers above 52-wk high $SPX $SPY $ES_F $DIA $RUT $IWM $NYA $RSP $QQQ $GLD $SLV $CL_F $NDX (Leuthold Group)

Now an extracted summary from a trusted followee:

  • Wayne Whaley@WayneWhaley1136 – WHEN A NEGATIVE LAST WEEK OF A +10% S&P YEAR is followed by a positive first week in the following year
    • The S&P
      1. Finished 2025 up 16.4%.
      2. Was down 1.38% in the last week (Dec24-31) of 2025 and
      3. Began 2026 with a 1.10% first week (Dec31-Jan7)
    • …. The upcoming January12-19 time frame was 7-0 in that 3-constraint setup for an avg 1.85% weekly gain. There was some eventual weakness in early February with Feb3-10 going 2-5 for an avg 1.21% loss.

Excellent so far but is the VIX saying something?

  • Subu Trade@SubuTrade – Jan 9 – Asset Managers increased their near-record Short $VIX positions this week. The only other comparable time was July 2024. Stocks pulled back in August 2024 and $VIX spiked

But that is for next month. What about 6-12 months later? Should we think back to 2021?

  • Subu Trade@SubuTrade – Breadth continues to strengthen: For the first time since 2021, over 90% of the Dow Jones’ stocks are above their 200 day moving average. In past instances, this kind of breadth expansion was always followed by higher Dow and $SPX 6–12 months later.

 

Key Stocks:

  • AAPL down 4.3%; AMZN up 9.2%; GOOGL up 4.3%; META up 41 bps; MSFT up  1.3%; NFLX down 1.7%; NVDA down 2.1%; MU up 9.4%; BAC down 18 bps; C up 2.2%; GS up 2.7%; JPM up 1.1%; KRE up 3.4%; EUFN down 1.3%; SCHW down 1.4%; APO down 54 bps; BX down 74 bps; KKR up 4.5%.

Dollar was up 81 bps on UUP & up 73 bps on DXY:

  • Gold up 4.1%; GDX up 8%; Silver up 10.8%; Copper up 3.4%; CLF minus 6.2%;  FCX up 8.9%; MOS up 3.8%; Oil up 2.8%; Brent up 3.9%; OIH up 7.3%; XLE up 2.2%;

International Stocks:

  • EEM up 1.6%; FXI down 1.2%; KWEB up 56 bps; EWZ up 2.7%; EWY up 6.5%; EWG up 2%; INDA down 2.5%; INDY down 2.3%; EPI down 2.8%; SMIN down 2.4%;

What about the broad EM sector?

  • Scott Brown, CMT@scottcharts – Emerging markets are breaking out of an 18-year base. And making 52-week relative highs vs. SPX

 

Treasuries & Interest Rates:

  • 30-year Treasury yield down 5.1 bps on the week; 20-yr yield down 5.4 bps; 10-yr down 2.3 bps; 7-yr down 1.1 bps; 5-yr up 1 bps; 3-yr up 3.7 bps; 2-yr up 5.2 bps; 1-yr up 4.3 bps;
  • TLT up 1%; EDV up 1.6%; ZROZ up 1.7%;

One interesting trade?

  • Subu Trade@SubuTrade – Jan 4 – $TLT Short Interest hits another all-time high. Will 2026 be the year that bonds finally rally?

Is there anyone pointing to a fundamental reason for this trade? Yes & it is relayed below by a bullish investor mentioned above in a highly bullish vein. That is what we term a frank & candid communication. We appreciate this candor.

  • Seth Golden@SethCL – Jan 9 – ALBERT EDWARDS “.. No-one is predicting US recession in 2026 despite this simple indicator having 100% track record. This time may well be different, but you’ve got to have a bloody good reason to ignore this.” EVERY. SINGLE. RECESSION. was an endogenous or exogenous event, rendering signal more coincidental than causal/leading in real-time! A bloody factual reason…And you’re welcome! $SPX $SPY $MACRO #economy #recession $QQQ $IWM $NYA $DIA $VIX

We have heard of Rich Saperstein of Treasury Partners for years & we do listen when he comes on air. His views are sensible & tend to work out well and his delivery is rational, modestly delivered. So why haven’t we featured a clip of his in our weekly articles? One reason is, as we said, his views are sensible & sensibly delivered but that is usually overshadowed by another clip/author who seems more “Interesting” for that week. But we are delighted to include Saperstein’s clip of this week which ends with right now the landscape for owing stocks is “tremendous”. 

 

2. Monica, O My Darling!

No, it is not the Monica that most of you have heard of. That one was born on July 23, 1973 per Google. The “Monica” we refer to was a character singing to her lover in the 1971 film :Kaaravaan” or Caravan. That became a mega hit & remains a fantastic hit to this day.

But we are not even speaking of that Monica of 1971. We are talking about the version of the “Monica” song reviewed by Rap reviewer with handle VI3ION . Until we heard his review, we were not even aware of how Dhurandhar songs have been received by the rapper community. First listen to his review of the “Run Down the City” song from Dhurandhar & his review of it. 

You heard about 1/2 the song in the above review. Understand this is NOT a song, per se, in the Bollywood style; meaning the guy on the bike doesn’t sing to his new 20-yr old date. The song & the music is just a background part of the drive. And that background lyrical music is only 2:37 minute long. Double And we can’t stop listening to it; and yes, the motorcycle is gorgeous too.
Don’t forget Dhurandhar is NOT NOT a Bollywood type film. In the new Dhurandhar fashion, the hero is gifted this brand new motorbike as a reward for a violent attack (watch the clip below) on the rival political party gang. He sits on it & goes to a fancy party when the young 20-yr old daughter of a big politician is dancing. He surreptitiously disables her fancy car & so she has no choice but to ride behind him to get home. Of course, he takes her on a bit wider ride. 

 

Remember what we wrote 2 weeks ago that you should not watch anything about Dhurandhar from the traditional Bollywood types. Watch the crap they showed in the half time of an NBA game & compare the pure power, speed & violence of the clip above.

Now, don’t you feel like puking when you watch the pathetic Bollywood-like crap above. We get that they could not show the actual clip but there are less pukable versions of other songs they could have featured. Heck, even the 1971 original track of this song is so much more real. Seriously watch it or listen to it. It was both a sensation in 1971 given the fast pace & the topic. 

As promised in our Dhu-run-dhar article two weeks ago, we did go to AMC 25 in Manhattan to watch Dhurandhar for the 3rd time. And it was ever better the third time. The first time we didn’t even notice the songs or music track. The second time we did hear the music track & other effects. But the 3rd time was the best. We could focus on the so many fine fine points of the story & the direction. Yes, the best film we have ever seen.

And the most eventful part of this film is its absolute acceptance by the people. It is so much more intense, more violent & so true to the actual events that took place back then in Karachi, Napakistan. Go watch this film & realize that this is a new India. 

And the people of NaPakistan realize it even more. They keep saying on their TV that the story is about their city of Karachi; the people were their own & yet how could those Indians from over there make a film that they should have made? Then they admit – No, those guys have gone way beyond us. We had never heard this capitulation from Napaki people on TV. And Dhurandhar is even more popular inside Pakistan than in India. 

Frankly, a screening of this film must be mandatory to foreign policy geeks like the CFR gang. We did our bit by tweeting Fareed Zakaria to ask whether he has watched it. We pointed out that his esteemed father would have watched Dhurandhar & commented on it. Don’t think Fareed is up to it. So sad!

 

 

 

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MV