#market-sentiment

#market-sentiment

When an asset is hated, owning the physical metal is the cleanest way to be right. When an asset is loved, the physical metal starts to be an inefficient way to capture further upside.

Remodeler sentiment remained generally positive in the first quarter, as it was at the end of last year, even as many remodelers are still working to manage their customers' cost expectations.

The Fear & Greed Index compresses volatility, trading volume, social media sentiment, Bitcoin dominance, and Google Trends into a single number between 0 and 100. Below 25 means extreme fear, 26 to 49 is fear, 50 to 74 is greed, and above 75 is extreme greed. Crypto markets typically spend only 15% to 20% of their time below 25, so 34 days there means the market sentiment has been in extreme fear for a long period.

S&P 500 futures are down 0.22% this morning after the index closed down 0.21% yesterday. The STOXX Europe 600 fell more than a full point in early trading. Asia had a good day on news that the International Energy Agency is preparing the largest release of strategic oil reserves in its history.

In 2026, we are deliberately prioritizing user growth and teaching better. We'll focus on improving the free learner experience to grow word of mouth and feed our next user growth engines like chess, math and music, even though that moderates near-term financial growth.

The markets are higher out of the gate, with technology leaders including Nvidia and Oracle leading the way. Traders and investors are looking to Nvidia's earnings report after the bell alongside comments from CEO Jensen Huang to improve market sentiment, which has taken a hit of late, with the Nasdaq Composite clocking declines of 3% over the past month.

A major problem for software companies is that their opponent is largely hypothetical. Even if both companies report blockbuster earnings, there's still the counterargument that AI will eventually eat their lunch.

DoorDash ( Nasdaq: DASH), Figma ( NYSE: FIG) and eBay ( Nasdaq: EBAY) all report calendar Q4 2025 earnings tonight after the close. The companies represent starkly different corners of the internet economy: one powering local delivery at scale, another reinventing a 30-year-old marketplace with AI, and a third a recent SaaS IPO. Yet, each stock has been under the same pressure recently. Fears around AI disruption have sent each of these company's stock south.

Berkshire slashed its Amazon position by 77%, continuing a pattern of reducing big tech exposure. This follows Berkshire's well-documented Apple trimming and reflects Buffett's broader cash-raising mode as the company transitions to Greg Abel's leadership. Buffett has never been comfortable with businesses he doesn't fully understand, and Amazon's sprawling empire of AWS, advertising, and retail may be too complex for his taste.

The meeting, held from 19 to 23 January under the theme "A Spirit of Dialogue," took place at a time when the global situation still feels uncomfortable. Inflation has eased in some places, but not enough to make central banks relaxed. Growth is holding in parts of the world and slowing in others. Debt remains high, and trade has become more political.

The quantum computing stocks boomed for most of 2025, only to go bust in the last quarter. In 2026, it's been mostly looking lower for many of the top quantum plays, including some of the more speculative plays. That said, the technology is still worth keeping tabs on, even as the quantum pure-play stocks continue to take more backward steps. Of course, investors have taken on more of a risk-off approach in the past couple of quarters.

At the time of writing, gold is down to $4,700 per Troy Ounce, having sat comfortably above $5,000 for the latter part of January. Silver is also down to $80 per Troy Ounce, similarly dropping on Thursday when news that Kevin Warsh would receive the nomination for Fed chairman firmed up. The price of precious metals, seen as an asset of safe haven, had pushed steadily higher over the past year in response to economic volatility.

Here's the thing about The Trade Desk's upcoming report: the numbers almost don't matter. I mean, they do -- analysts want roughly $841 million in revenue (up from $749 million) and $0.34 per share in earnings (down from $0.59). Management guided for revenue of at least $840 million. But this stock fell after strong reports all 2025 long. The market is in a mood, and even solid numbers are no guarantee of a bullish Street reaction.

A recent Gemini XRP poll (December 12-23, 2025) shows a striking consensus: 73% of respondents now predict XRP ( ) will finish 2025 between $1.50 and $2.00. This crowd-driven XRP price prediction for December 2025 implies a very muted year-end for the coin, given XRP's current level around $1.88. Just a few weeks ago, traders were more bullish-about 38% expected XRP to rally to $2.00-$2.50 by December 31, but that figure has since plunged to 28%.

When Oracle failed to meet revenue expectations and suggested that large-scale data centers may not be ready until 2028, it immediately chilled sentiment across the entire sector. On the same day the Dow pushed to new highs, the Nasdaq was hit hard, with anything even loosely tied to AI selling off aggressively. That divergence told us the market was reassessing the timeline, not the technology.

The company is seeking a $1.5 trillion valuation - the richest listing in history, per Bloomberg. Combined with other possible listings, Bloomberg estimates that as much as $2.9 trillion worth of private companies could go public next year. Other AI-linked "centicorns" - companies valued at $100-billion plus-are reportedly weighing listings, including Databricks and Anthropic. OpenAI has an implied valuation of over $500 billion, fueling speculation about a future stock listing, though it has attempted to tamp that down.

Yesterday, the leading Digital Asset Treasury company for Ethereum, Bitmine (NASDAQ: BMNR), posted an update on its holding through December 8th. They possess nearly 4m in ETH, 192 BTC, $1b in cash, and a $36m stake in Eightco Holdings (NASDAQ: ORBS). Tom Lee has stated the company's goal is to own 5% of the ETH supply, and they continue to purchase Ethereum on a weekly basis. As of yesterday, Bitmine had purchased 138,452 ETH over the prior week, the largest purchase week for Bitmine.

"OpenAI was the golden child earlier this year, and Alphabet was looked at in a very different light," said Brett Ewing, chief market strategist at First Franklin Financial Services. "Now sentiment is much more tempered toward OpenAI."

What I find most fascinating about the markets in general (mostly the headlines in the financial media) is the amount of certainty that can go into bullish or bearish calls. Whichever side of the fence a particular analyst or talking head finds themselves on, I feel as though a given position can become more entrenched over time. For the better part of the past two decades, bulls have been correct in digging their heels in and calling recession calls "insane," or at least unlikely.

It will certainly be interesting to write the obituary for 2025. Given that there's one month left in this fiscal year (plenty of time for lots to take place), I wouldn't be surprised to either see an incredible Santa Claus rally materialize into year end, or a continuation of some of the bearish momentum we've seen build form into a full-blown market selloff as investors reposition their portfolios for more downside as this AI selloff continues.

Alphabet Inc. ( NASDAQ: GOOG) shares climbed 2.1% on Friday, November 28, 2025, as retail sentiment surged to 64 (bullish) while NVIDIA Corporation ( NASDAQ: NVDA) sentiment dropped to 33 (bearish). The catalyst: reports that Meta Platforms Inc. ( NASDAQ:META) is in advanced talks to spend billions on Google's TPU chips instead of NVIDIA's GPUs, triggering discussion about the first real crack in NVIDIA's dominance.

Sure, they believed in the enduring appeal of New York and dutifully recited the mantra about how resilient the real-estate market was and how it had weathered any number of crises (9/11, the 2008 recession, COVID, the mansion tax) only to emerge stronger than ever. But they'd also seen clients depart or downsize to pieds-à-terreafter the pandemic and were terrified that Mamdani's win would make others do the same.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's comments helped spark concerns about an AI bubble.

Strategy (NASDAQ: MSTR), the world's largest corporate holder of bitcoin, expanded its treasury once again last week, purchasing 168 BTC for $18.8 million at an average price of $112,051 per coin, according to a new U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Following the purchase, Strategy now holds 640,418 BTC, acquired at a total cost of roughly $47.40 billion, reflecting an average purchase price of $74,010 per bitcoin.

The UK IPO market has largely remained in 'wait and see' mode throughout 2025, as companies navigate the repercussions of prolonged geopolitical and macroeconomic instability. However, we are starting to see a shift in sentiment with several large IPOs already confirmed this month. Momentum is now building and the IPO pipeline for the next six to 12 months is strengthening as market conditions improve, with prospective companies keen to move when the pricing window opens.

Key findings found that business volumes declined in the quarter to September at the fastest rate since June 2020 (weighted balance of -36% from -24% in June). However, firms expect volumes growth to make a strong recovery next quarter (+37%). Sentiment was broadly flat in the three months to September, following a sharp fall in June (+3 from -52% in June).