Updated 2 min read
US stocks fluctuated at the opening bell on Friday as Wall Street kicked off trading in 2026 after its third consecutive year of double-digit percentage gains.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) fell about 0.2% in early trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) rose about 0.2% and the S&P 500 (^GSPC) dropped below the flat line after opening higher.
Markets are coming off a sputtering end to a roller-coaster 2025 that nevertheless ended with sizable gains for the major indexes. The benchmark S&P 500 rose over 16% for the year, while the Nasdaq Composite led gains with a more-than 20% jump.
Now the focus turns to 2026, though the year will likely begin in earnest come Monday. For stocks, the outlook calls for more optimism. Every Wall Street forecaster tracked by Bloomberg is predicting that stocks will rally for a fourth consecutive year. But plenty of risks remain: The AI boom could falter, the US economy could surprise, and President Trump, of course, remains a wild card as the fate of his most sweeping tariffs could become clearer this month.
Gold (GC=F) and silver (SI=F) advanced to open the 2026 trading year, with the precious metals building on their best annual performances since 1979, and aluminum (ALI=F) crossed $3,000 per ton for the first time since 2022.
Wall Street’s bid for a “Santa Claus rally” — during the last five trading days of December and first two of January — has so far sputtered. The S&P 500 is down nearly 1% in the period, with investors looking at a third consecutive down “Santa” period.
Among the top items on Wall Street’s 2026 list is the Federal Reserve, where the divisions that have gripped the central bank in 2025 look likely to continue this year. President Trump has promised this month to appoint a new chair to replace Jerome Powell. For now, most traders expect the central bank to hold steady on interest rates later this month, though bets are more split for March’s meeting.
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Stocks rise to open first trading session of the new year
US stocks rose in the first minutes of trading on Friday as investors began the first session of 2026 after the market’s third consecutive year of double-digit percentage gains.
The benchmark S&P 500 (^GSPC) picked up more than 0.4%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) gained a stronger 1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) gained roughly 0.2% before paring gains back to the flatline.
Gold (GC=F) and silver (SI=F) gained around 1% and 4%, respectively, through the early hours of the first day of 2026 trading, building on their best annual performances since 1979, while aluminum (ALI=F) crossed $3,000 per ton for the first time since 2022 on a litany of global supply chain disruptions.
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AI hyperscalers rally in the first early trading session of the year
AI hyperscalers notched gains in early morning trading as Wall Street kicked off a new year of trading and maintained optimism that the AI and Big Tech boom will keep on growing.
“Magnificent 7” names such as chipmaking leader Nvidia (NVDA) and hyperscalers Oracle (ORCL) and Google (GOOG) picked up more than 1% in each in the early hours of trading before the opening bell on Friday.
A basket of AI-focused companies, including Meta (META), Microsoft (MSFT), and Amazon (AMZN), all gained upward of 0.5%.
The AI trade spent much of the second half of 2025 plagued by worries throughout the market that valuations were getting too lofty and spending was getting too out of control.
But the companies have persisted, and Wall Street strategists see it as largely unlikely that the biggest companies in the world are going anywhere. An ETF tracking the sector (XLK) returned more than 13.5% over the past six months.
The market is in for “another year of double-digit gains mirroring the late 1990s equity boom,” wrote Nicole Inui, HSBC head of equity strategy for the Americas, in the bank’s 2026 outlook.
“Back then, like today, tech is leading, return concentration is high, and a new technology is promising to be transformational. We expect equities to remain supported by the AI-led capex boom,” Inui wrote.
Goldman Sachs (GS) strategist Peter Oppenheimer told clients in an outlook note that while there is a risk of over-concentration and high valuations in the market, investor optimism may be able to override bearish narratives.
“Despite the higher-than-average valuations across equity markets, there is potential for upside risks to our central forecasts if investor optimism, driven by the AI and easing narratives, triggers further valuation expansion, in common with most optimism phases of bull markets.”
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