Stocks Rally to Close Out Big Week as Bonds Slip: Markets Wrap
(Bloomberg) — Wall Street brushed aside concerns about the Trump administration’s tariff regime to send US stocks to all-time highs in the first trading week of the new year. Bonds remained under pressure.
The S&P 500 rose 0.6% Friday to a record while the Nasdaq 100 jumped 1%. Stocks had dipped briefly after the Supreme Court failed to weigh in on the fate of President Donald Trump’s import levies with consumer names, like Mattel Inc. and Deckers Outdoor Corp., left out of the rally. Small-cap and blue-chip benchmarks hit new peaks as equity gains broadened beyond just big tech names.
Mark Malek, chief investment officer at Siebert Financial said Friday’s move higher in stocks was unsurprising.
“This morning many folks became hyper focused on the SCOTUS ruling and perhaps quickly dismissed the jobs data with a ‘meh,’” he said. “Once we learned that there would be no ruling, many may have circled back to the employment numbers and viewed them as being slightly positive. Not bad, not good either, but slightly positive.”
Malek expects any relief rally to be short-lived once investors turn their focus back to the deficit.
All eyes will be on the labor market, according to David Lebovitz of JPMorgan Asset Management, he has a more sanguine view of the year to come.
“A stable market should allow forecasts for above trend growth to materialize and further disinflation. Not too hot, not too cold, just right,” he said. “We don’t think AI is a bubble, and expect that the application of this technology – and the associated profits – will broaden over the course of 2026.”
The retail trader buying spree that’s helped protect the market from broader pullbacks has extended into the new year according to data from JPMorgan Securities.
Friday’s US jobs report reinforced Wall Street’s bets that the Federal Reserve will leave interest rates on hold for the near term. The yield on two-year Treasuries rose around 4 basis points to 3.53%.
Nonfarm payrolls increased by 50,000 in December, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data out Friday. The unemployment rate was 4.4% last month, down from 4.6% in November. Economists anticipated 70,000 new positions and an unemployment rate of 4.5%.
Art Hogan, B. Riley Wealth’s chief market strategist, called the report a mixed bag. “We continue to see an environment where companies are slow to hire and slow to fire. The overarching takeaway in today’s report is that there is more good news than bad in the first on time jobs report in three months.”
Swaps traders are still expecting around half a percentage point of Fed interest rate cuts in 2026 with a January cut largely off the table.
“The unemployment rate dropped to 4.4%, a positive given its rise had been a key concern and marker of labor weakness over the past year. On the negative side, revisions revealed fewer jobs created than previously believed with private payrolls bearing the brunt of the downgrade,” according to Jeff Schulze, head of economic and market strategy at ClearBridge Investments. “This outcome should keep the Fed on hold for now, although the committee will remain vigilant for signs of further labor softening.”
To Karen Georges, a fund manager at Ecofi Investissements in Paris, the readout was “not catastrophic and the market is taking the view that the Fed will be content with these mediocre numbers for now.”
The rate on the benchmark 10-year was little changed at 4.16% with bond investors remaining in wait-and-see mode. The dollar rallied to a one-month high while the yen weakened the most among Group-of-10 currencies.
What Bloomberg Strategists say…
“With jobs data and SCOTUS/tariff angst out of the way, the focus will shift to the return of supply next week. This advances the prospect of higher yields in the coming week.”
—Alyce Andres, Macro Strategist, Markets Live
For the full analysis, click here.
In commodities, oil notched its longest streak of weekly gains since June as Iran intensified a crackdown on protests across the country and President Trump threatened repercussions if demonstrators were targeted.
Corporate News:
Meta Platforms Inc. agreed to a series of electricity deals for its data centers that will make it the biggest buyer of nuclear power among its hyperscaler peers. Rio Tinto Group is in talks to buy Glencore Plc to create the world’s biggest mining company with a combined market value of more than $200 billion, a little over a year after earlier talks between the two collapsed. China Vanke Co. is preparing a debt restructuring plan at the request of authorities, people familiar with the matter said, pushing one of the country’s largest real estate developers closer to default. Dutch telecommunications group Odido is considering launching an initial public offering as soon as this month that could raise about €1 billion ($1.2 billion) or more, according to people familiar with the matter. General Motors Co. will take another $6 billion in charges tied to production cutbacks in its electric vehicle and battery operations as the financial fallout spreads from the weakening US market for EVs. Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
The S&P 500 rose 0.6% as of 4:01 p.m. New York time The Nasdaq 100 rose 1% The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.5% The MSCI World Index rose 0.6% Currencies
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.2% The euro fell 0.2% to $1.1634 The British pound fell 0.2% to $1.3407 The Japanese yen fell 0.7% to 157.89 per dollar Cryptocurrencies
Bitcoin fell 1.1% to $90,164.54 Ether fell 1.5% to $3,068.66 Bonds
The yield on 10-year Treasuries was little changed at 4.17% Germany’s 10-year yield was little changed at 2.86% Britain’s 10-year yield declined three basis points to 4.37% Commodities
West Texas Intermediate crude rose 1.7% to $58.76 a barrel Spot gold rose 0.6% to $4,506.63 an ounce This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Peyton Forte, Isabelle Lee, James Hirai, Sujata Rao, Julien Ponthus, Daniel Curtis and Neil Campling.
©2026 Bloomberg L.P.
