Daily Market Report – December 29, 2025

One of the well-known calendar effects is the Santa Claus Rally. Yale Hirsch first pointed out in the Stock Trader’s Almanac in 1972 that stocks tend to show above-average performance during the last five trading days of December and the first two trading days of January.

As is often the case, however, seasonal patterns only reveal their significance when averaged over many years. Accordingly, the US stock markets started the last trading week with caution: On Monday, the indices opened slightly weaker due to thin holiday liquidity, with the S&P 500, Dow Jones, and Nasdaq all slightly in the red.

Among individual stocks, technology shares came under pressure: Nvidia NVDA and Palantir PLTR each lost about 1.5% in the first hour of trading. In contrast, DigitalBridge Group DBRG performed significantly better, with its stock gaining nearly ten percent after SoftBank presented a takeover bid of around four billion US dollars, and the uncertainty about whether the deal would actually go through diminished. A belated Christmas gift for merger arbitrage funds that had speculated on the announced acquisition.

In the commodity markets, the situation remained volatile: Oil prices rose noticeably after inconclusive talks in Mar-a-Lago regarding Ukraine, while precious metals like gold and silver gave back significantly from recent highs. The gold mining operator Newmont NEM was particularly hard hit, with its stock losing more than five percent.