(These are the market notes on today’s action by Mike Santoli, CNBC’s Senior Markets Commentator.) Six trading days of unsettled action is looking for now like a mere stutter-step rather than a stumble for the rally. The sharp but shallow 3% pullback prompted a more severe “de-risking” impulse than one might’ve expected, clearing the way for a brisk little rally today in the absence of fresh bad news along the credit and trade-war fronts. Deutsche Bank strategists noted that aggregate investor equity exposure dropped from a significant (though not extreme) overweight posture back to dead neutral over the course of a week. Goldman Sachs reports its hedge-fund clients shed risk more quickly than in any week since April. And the Volatility Index , whose surge to around 25 appeared a bit overdone for a mere 3% dip, has now bled lower toward 18, stranding a lot of hedgers and bearish speculators with expensive downside protection. The S & P 500 has surmounted last week’s high, leaving only about a third of a percent between it and the record set the week before last. As everyone always says, an overbought market can come back into line with a severe pullback or by simply chopping sideways for a bit. Were a few days of apprehensive action enough to reload the rally for a true year-end FOMO ramp? Every day that passes without a new hiccup in credit land allows the anxiety over private credit and small-bank exposures to off-balance-sheet lending structures to dissipate a bit. Regional-bank stocks as a group bounced 2% on the day, but remain off by almost 5% this month and are 14% below their 52-week high. Constructive but not decisive. Some excitement around Apple shares making their first new high since the end of 2024, understandably so given its visibility and ubiquity in retail portfolios. Still, as I’ve argued for years, there are no special bellwether properties bestowed on Apple. It goes on streaks of its own somewhat independent of broad-market movements, and sometimes acts as a lagging/defensive play. Note that after its prior record high on Dec. 26, the S & P 500 fell almost 4% over two weeks and was all but capped for months after. Back in July 2024, its furious advance coincided with a tactical peak in the S & P 500 and Mag7 leadership. Semis as a group also making a new high, though with Nvidia and Broadcom notably underperforming. Oracle down again. The AI trade lives but is not working in harmony. Gold prices took a single day’s break on Friday and were up 3.5%. Many charts showing enormous buildup of gold used by central banks as reserves are supporting the notion that price-insensitive buyers will keep the parabolic rally alive. No asset that climbs at such an angle is in a truly safe place, but gold’s lack of actual fundamentals make it the perfect speculative vehicle and an ideal subject ofa buying stampede. Hard to see how such a run doesn’t result in gold adding some instability to the tape whenever a reversal occurs. Monday’s rally was respectably broad, with 80% upside volume on the NYSE, and the equal-weighted S & P 500 was up more than 1%. Bitcoin , a negative outlier last week, rebounded modestly, up 2%. High-beta stocks have picked up the lead again, up 1.5% to a 0.3% uptick by low-volatility big-caps . Still far from clear that last week’s shakeout was a proper reset in a market with rich valuations and credit conditions slightly less generous than two weeks ago. Bulls seem happy to take their chances on earnings season carrying things from here. No doubt the beat rates will be quite high again though worth noting that last quarter — when companies as a group trounced forecasts — there was a pronounced “sell the news” reflex greeting the first wave of reports.
