S&P 500 climbs, metals lose some shine

The S&P 500 (SPX) snapped a two-week losing streak to close out a positive January—but not without some bumps along the way.

The stock market didn’t appear to take much notice of last week’s Fed developments—the central bank left interest rates unchanged last Wednesday, and President Trump announced Kevin Warsh as his pick to succeed Jerome Powell as Chair on Friday. But some market watchers attributed a sell-off in precious metals to the latter news, because of its apparent potential to bolster Fed independence.

After closing at a new record high last Tuesday—and setting an intraday record on Wednesday—the SPX weathered a volatile Thursday and a soft Friday to end the week with a modest gain:

The headline: Up week, up month—for stocks.

The fine print: Thursday’s market volatility—when the SPX fell to a one-week intraday low before bouncing—was tech-centric, cueing off Microsoft’s (MSFT) post-earnings weakness, which was widely attributed to disappointing growth in its cloud-computing unit.

The move(s): The record-setting surge in precious metals got a reality check late last week. On Friday, March silver futures (SIH6) tumbled more than 21% (the market’s largest one-day decline since 1980), while April gold futures (GCJ6) fell nearly 9% (the biggest drop in more than a decade). April platinum (PLJ6) fell 17%.

The number: 0.5%, Friday’s higher-than-expected month-over-month increase in the Producer Price Index (PPI) for December—a reminder that inflation, while relatively stable, continues to be stubbornly above target.

The scorecard: The SPX was the only major index with a gain last week, while the Russell 2000 (RUT) small-cap index pulled back relatively sharply—although it still posted the biggest gain for the month:

Sector returns: The strongest S&P 500 sectors last week were communication services (+4.2%), energy (+3.9%), and utilities (+1.7%). The weakest sectors were health care (-1.7%), consumer discretionary (-1.4%), and materials (-1.2%).

Stock moves: Lands’ End (LE) +34% to $18.76 on Monday, Robert Half (RHI) +28% to $34.61 on Friday. PennyMac Financial Services (PFSI) -33% to $99.92 and Unity Software (U) -24% to $29.10, both on Friday.

Yields and the dollar: The 10-year US Treasury yield ended the week up 0.03% at 4.26%. After falling to its lowest level in nearly four years last Tuesday, the US Dollar Index (DXY) rebounded to end the week down only 0.61 at 96.99.

Futures: After rallying more than $600 last week through Thursday, April gold’s (GCG6) Friday sell-off left the market down $75.60 at $4,907.5. March silver (SIH6) erased an $18.52 intraweek gain, closing Friday at $85.25, down $18.01 for the week. March WTI crude oil (CLH6) rallied $4.46 to $65.74—the market’s biggest up week since last June. Biggest rallies: March natural gas (NGH6) +20.7%, March Uranium (UXH6) +12%. Biggest declines:  April platinum (PLJ6) -22.6%, March silver (SIH6) -21.1%.

With the monthly jobs report and JOLTS canceled because of the partial government shutdown, the ADP private employment report and job cuts are the only monthly labor-market data points this week:

●Monday: ISM Manufacturing Index
●Wednesday: ADP employment, ISM Services Index, vehicle sales
●Thursday: job cuts
●Friday: consumer sentiment

Another busy week of earnings features two more Mag-7 names, along with plenty of high-profile pharma, tech energy, and consumer stocks:

●Monday: Amgen (AMGN), Disney (DIS), Novartis (NVS), NXP Semiconductors (NXPI), PepsiCo (PEP), Palantir (PLTR), Rambus (RMBS), Shell (SHEL), Teradyne (TER), Tyson Foods (TSN)
●Tuesday: Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Clorox (CLX), Cirrus Logic (CRUS), Electronic Arts (EA), Enphase (ENPH), Merck (MRK), Match Group (MTCH), Novo Nordisk (NVO), Pfizer (PFE), PayPal (PYPL), Silicon Motion (SIMO), Viking Therapeutics (VKTX)
●Wednesday: AbbVie (ABBV), Arm Holdings (ARM), Darling Ingredients (DAR), e.l.f. Beauty (ELF), Alphabet (GOOGL), Kellogg (K), Eli Lilly (LLY), O'Reilly Automotive (ORLY), Phillips 66 (PSX), Qualcomm (QCOM), Uber (UBER), Yum Brands (YUM)
●Thursday: Affirm (AFRM), Amazon (AMZN), Barrick Mining (B), Bill (BILL), Bristol Myers Squibb (BMY), ConocoPhillips (COP), Estee Lauder (EL), Hershey (HSY), Roblox (RBLX), Reddit (RDDT), Ralph Lauren (RL), Rockwell Automation (ROK), Atlassian (TEAM), Tapestry (TPR), XPO (XPO)
●Friday: Biogen (BIIB), Centene (CNC), Philip Morris (PM)

Check the Active Trader Commentary each morning for an updated list of earnings announcements, IPOs, economic reports, and other market events.

Historically, February has never consistently been one of the stronger months for US stocks. Over the past 69 years, the SPX has gained ground in February 36 times and fallen 33 times:¹

Overall, February has been an up month for the SPX less frequently than any month other than September (52% of the time), and its 0.2% median return since 1957 is only higher than September and June. The SPX had a negative return in six of the past 10 Februarys.

On the other hand, February was a positive month more often than usual if the SPX closed January above the closes of the previous 12 months, as it did on Friday. After the 28 other times this happened since 1958, the SPX had a positive February return 17 times.

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¹ All figures reflect S&P 500 (SPX) monthly closing prices, 1957-2025. Supporting document available upon request.