Metals, Crypto Drama Hurt Stocks, Raise Volatility

By Joe Mazzola

Turbulent commodity markets kept pressure on major indexes early today, continuing a trend that also hurt crypto and pushed up volatility. Gold and silver futures recovered from their weakest overnight levels and even showed flashes of green, but it still could be an ugly, risk-off day. Metals and cryptos have been taken to the woodshed. These are massive deleveraging plays and could reflect some big margin calls coming in.

Assuming Congress gets the lights back on in Washington where a shutdown began over the weekend, it's jobs week. Everything leads up to Friday's motherlode, the January nonfarm payrolls report, but there are nuggets along the way including tomorrow morning's December Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS. Analysts expect a slight decline to around seven million, which could reinforce ideas that employers aren't too interested in hiring. Layoffs made the news recently, with Amazon (AMZN) and UPS (UPS) among those cutting jobs last month. Looking ahead to Friday, analysts expect around 68,000 new jobs added in January, slightly above December's 50,000 but still low historically.

Stocks slumped Friday but the S&P 500 Index managed to avoid a third-straight losing week and finished up more than 1% for January. The big story, though, was dramatic selling in gold and silver, which fell 11% and 31%, respectively, after President Trump nominated policy hawk Kevin Warsh as Federal Reserve chairman, easing Fed independence and dollar concerns. At its intraday low Friday, silver was down nearly 40% from Thursday's record high, suffering its worst day since March 1980. "Price action over the last two days is a firm 'risk off' shift in sentiment," noted Nathan Peterson, director of derivatives research and strategy at the Schwab Center for Financial Research (SCFR). "This type of speculative deleveraging could be a short-term phenomenon, but it does create some near-term technical damage, so healing could take time."

Three things to watch

Earnings season rolls on, starting with mouse ears: Another roughly 20% of S&P 500 companies report this week and the season will be about two-thirds complete when Friday comes around. Though Alphabet (GOOGL) late Wednesday and Amazon (AMZN) late Thursday might be seen as most important, a host of others could move the market, including Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) tomorrow afternoon and Eli Lilly (LLY) Wednesday morning. Palantir (PLTR) and Qualcomm (QCOM) are two other tech firms on the list. Arm Holdings (ARM) on Wednesday is another to watch, as it can be a barometer for the chip market. The week kicked off with a trip to the movies and theme parks as Walt Disney (DIS) shared results. Out of the 165 S&P 500 companies reporting to date, 60% have beaten estimates on the top line while 79% have beaten on the bottom line, according to Bloomberg. Year-over-year earnings-per-share (EPS) growth is tracking at 15.31%, though earnings season is just one-third complete. For reference, FactSet forecasts 8.2% EPS growth for the entire S&P 500.
Investors anticipate Wall Street choppiness: Volatility ticked up last week amid data, earnings, and geopolitical turbulence, and could have a higher ceiling. The Cboe Volatility Index, or VIX, ended last week above 17 and hasn't shown any sign of returning to early-January lows under 15. The futures market prices later months above spot levels, signaling investor concern about choppier markets ahead. Other sources of concern include the falling dollar and rising oil prices, with the latter reflecting heightened U.S.-Iran tensions. Last Friday's hotter-than-expected December Producer Price Index (PPI) report raised even more concern, though it's possible the sharp rise reflected data discrepancies related to the autumn government shutdown. While President Trump's nomination of Warsh as Fed chairman might have eased market concerns over Fed independence, there's uncertainty if he'll be approved thanks to Republican Senator Thom Tillis' threat to oppose any nominee until the federal government's criminal case against Fed Chairman Jerome Powell is resolved. In sum, the market faces a gauntlet of uncertain affairs in weeks to come, and investors should prepare for a rising VIX to possibly limit Wall Street gains.
Sector spotlight, a month in: With one month in the books, several sectors that shied away from the spotlight in recent years top the list of performers. While the S&P 500 Index is up 1.37% so far in 2026, energy is far ahead of that at 14.37% thanks to rising oil prices amid geopolitical turbulence and icy U.S. weather. Materials, buttressed by the metals rally, takes second place, followed by defensive consumer staples. Industrials and communication services round out the top five. Three sectors ended lower in January: health care, info tech, and financials. This aligns with ideas that the rotation out of tech rolled into 2026, though some investors clamored back in early last week before the parade of mega-cap earnings. Looking ahead to February, it's traditionally not a standout. Since 1928, the S&P 500 Index has posted an average return of -0.1% in February, with gains reported 52% of the time.

On the move

Disney inched up about 1% after earnings and revenue exceeded expectations. Earnings per share of $1.63 topped consensus of $1.57, and revenue rose 5.2% year over year to $25.98 billion. Guidance looked solid, and the company's "experiences" business record $10 billion in quarterly revenue. Disney's earnings call could shed light on the replacement for CEO Bob Iger, who's expected to step down before the end of the year, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Nvidia (NVDA) slipped 1% in early trading after media reports that its $100 billion deal with OpenAI may be in question. The agreement, announced last fall, would have the companies build at least 10 gigawatts of computing power for OpenAI, CNBC reported. Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang over the weekend denied reports he was unhappy with OpenAI.
Oracle (ORCL) climbed 5.1% early today as the company said it expects to raise between $45 billion and $50 billion of cash proceeds this year. The money will pay for additional capacity to meet contracted demand from its largest Oracle Cloud infrastructure customers.
Best Buy (BBY) fell nearly 2% after getting downgraded to neutral from overweight by JPMorgan Chase. One source of pressure could be higher memory market prices that diminish computing sales.
Palantir (PLTR) surged more than 2% today ahead of its earnings report after the close. Analysts expect earnings per share of $0.23. Heading into earnings, Palantir received an upgrade to outperform from market perform by William Blair, which cited valuation after a recent sell-off and said Palantir's commercial momentum has continued.
Shale producers Devon Energy (DVN) and Coterra Energy (CTRA) both saw shares fall more than 3% after CNBC reported the two are set to merge in an all-stock deal worth $38 billion.
Verizon (VZ) climbed more than 11% Friday, supported by earnings that topped consensus and subscriber growth surged by more than 600,000.
Tesla (TSLA) added 3% Friday after Bloomberg reported that Elon Musk's SpaceX is considering a merger with the EV giant or xAI as an alternative to a traditional initial public offering. But shares lost ground this morning after Tesla sales fell to a three-year low in France and plunged 88% in Norway, according to Bloomberg.
In the chip market Friday, some recent high-flyers like Micron (MU), Western Digital (WDC), and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) fell sharply. The losses at Western Digital came despite a strong earnings report. Some pressure might have represented "buy the rumor, sell the fact" trading that spilled into other AI-related names, but it's also possible Western Digital disappointed some investors by saying on its call it plans to monetize its $4.6 billion equity stake in Sandisk (SNDK) by February 25, Briefing.com reported.
Gold climbed just over 1% this morning and silver added 4% but both remain down dramatically from last week's highs. The U.S. Dollar Index ($DXY) continued to improve, partly on hopes for a quick end to the government shutdown and on dwindling Fed independence fears after the nomination of Kevin Warsh. Mining stocks moved little ahead of the open.
Crude oil (/CL) pulled back 5% on signs of calming relations between the U.S. and Iran. Energy stocks fell early.
Odds of a Fed rate cut didn't wobble much in the wake of the Warsh news. There's still about an 80% chance of the Fed making its first cut at the June meeting, the first meeting Warsh would chair if his nomination gets approved, according to the CME FedWatch Tool. Expectations remain high for at least two rate cuts by year-end.
Bitcoin (/BTC) plunged 7% early Monday, continuing the trend from late last week amid pressure from a combination of rising odds of a government shutdown and the announcement of Warsh as Fed chairman. Slow progress on crypto legislation in Washington is another headwind. At morning lows below $75,000, futures hit their weakest level since last April. Shares of crypto-linked company Strategy (MSTR) crumbled 7%.

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