Stock market today: Nasdaq, Dow, S&P 500 waver as Wall Street kicks off 2026

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US stocks fluctuated at the opening bell on Friday as Wall Street kicked off trading in 2026 after its third consecutive year of double-digit percentage gains.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) fell about 0.2% in early trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) rose about 0.3% and the S&P 500 (^GSPC) dropped below the flat line after opening higher.

Markets are coming off a sputtering end to a roller-coaster 2025 that nevertheless ended with sizable gains for the major indexes. The benchmark S&P 500 rose over 16% for the year, while the Nasdaq Composite led gains with a more-than 20% jump.

Now the focus turns to 2026, though the year will likely begin in earnest come Monday. For stocks, the outlook calls for more optimism. Every Wall Street forecaster tracked by Bloomberg is predicting that stocks will rally for a fourth consecutive year. But plenty of risks remain: The AI boom could falter, the US economy could surprise, and President Trump, of course, remains a wild card as the fate of his most sweeping tariffs could become clearer this month.

Gold (GC=F) and silver (SI=F) advanced to open the 2026 trading year, with the precious metals building on their best annual performances since 1979, and aluminum (ALI=F) crossed $3,000 per ton for the first time since 2022.

Wall Street’s bid for a “Santa Claus rally” — during the last five trading days of December and first two of January — has so far sputtered. The S&P 500 is down nearly 1% in the period, with investors looking at a third consecutive down “Santa” period.

Among the top items on Wall Street’s 2026 list is the Federal Reserve, where the divisions that have gripped the central bank in 2025 look likely to continue this year. President Trump has promised this month to appoint a new chair to replace Jerome Powell. For now, most traders expect the central bank to hold steady on interest rates later this month, though bets are more split for March’s meeting.

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The CEO of multi-brand luxury retailer Saks Global, Marc Metrick, is being replaced as the company evaluates its options to alleviate a debt crisis, including a potential bankruptcy filing.

Metrick, who was appointed CEO in July 2024 after Saks Fifth Avenue’s merger with Neiman Marcus Group, has been replaced by executive chairman Richard Baker, effective immediately, according to a press release published on Friday.

The privately held Saks Global, once a powerhouse of luxury retail, has spent the past year embroiled in a quickly worsening debt crisis.

When Hudson’s Bay Company, the Canadian holding corporation that owned Saks Fifth Avenue, acquired Neiman Marcus Group to create Saks Global in a $2.7 billion transaction, the new entity assumed a significant amount of debt. By December, the company failed to make on-time payments to service more than $100 million in bonds tied to the acquisition.

The company, which had explored options including selling a minority stake to fellow luxury big-box store Bergdorf Goodman to alleviate its debt load, has recently been preparing to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Elon Musk’s Tesla (TSLA) published fourth quarter vehicle deliveries showing the carmaker missed forecasts while recording a second straight annual decline in the metric. This comes after Tesla published Wall Street consensus estimates for deliveries earlier in the week that were below those compiled by Bloomberg.

Yahoo Finance’s Pras Subramanian reports:

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Furniture retailer RH (RH) stock rose 7% before the bell on Friday, alongside Wayfair (W), which climbed 4% following the news that the Trump administration will delay planned tariff hikes on a range of furniture categories.

Investing.com reports:

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US stocks rose in the first minutes of trading on Friday as investors began the first session of 2026 after the market’s third consecutive year of double-digit percentage gains.

The benchmark S&P 500 (^GSPC) picked up more than 0.4%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) gained a stronger 1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) gained roughly 0.2% before paring gains back to the flatline.

Gold (GC=F) and silver (SI=F) gained around 1% and 4%, respectively, through the early hours of the first day of 2026 trading, building on their best annual performances since 1979, while aluminum (ALI=F) crossed $3,000 per ton for the first time since 2022 on a litany of global supply chain disruptions.
AI hyperscalers notched gains in early morning trading as Wall Street kicked off a new year of trading and maintained optimism that the AI and Big Tech boom will keep on growing.

“Magnificent 7” names such as chipmaking leader Nvidia (NVDA) and hyperscalers Oracle (ORCL) and Google (GOOG) picked up more than 1% in each in the early hours of trading before the opening bell on Friday.

A basket of AI-focused companies, including Meta (META), Microsoft (MSFT), and Amazon (AMZN), all gained upward of 0.5%.

The AI trade spent much of the second half of 2025 plagued by worries throughout the market that valuations were getting too lofty and spending was getting too out of control.

But the companies have persisted, and Wall Street strategists see it as largely unlikely that the biggest companies in the world are going anywhere. An ETF tracking the sector (XLK) returned more than 13.5% over the past six months.

The market is in for “another year of double-digit gains mirroring the late 1990s equity boom,” wrote Nicole Inui, HSBC head of equity strategy for the Americas, in the bank’s 2026 outlook.

“Back then, like today, tech is leading, return concentration is high, and a new technology is promising to be transformational. We expect equities to remain supported by the AI-led capex boom,” Inui wrote.

Goldman Sachs (GS) strategist Peter Oppenheimer told clients in an outlook note that while there is a risk of over-concentration and high valuations in the market, investor optimism may be able to override bearish narratives.

“Despite the higher-than-average valuations across equity markets, there is potential for upside risks to our central forecasts if investor optimism, driven by the AI and easing narratives, triggers further valuation expansion, in common with most optimism phases of bull markets.”
From SpaceX (SPAX.PVT) to the supermarket, 2026 is shaping up to be a year of massive shifts and financial pivots.

Yahoo Finance’s senior reporter Hamza Shaban takes a look at some of the key 2026 predictions.

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Bloomberg News reports:

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Aluminum (ALI=F) rose above $3,000 a ton for the first time since 2022 due to a tightening supply outlook and long-term demand bets, joining other base metals reaching milestones.

Bloomberg News reports:

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Bloomberg News reports:

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Reuters reports:

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Oil climbed higher on the first trading day of 2026 after posting its biggest annual drop since 2026, as traders assessed the upcoming OPEC+ meeting, alongside geopolitical concerns in Venezuela, Ukraine, and Iran.

Bloomberg News reports:

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Bloomberg News reports:

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