🥇 Gold has hit another record high—$4,612.70 this time—in Sunday evening futures.

This is the first all-time high of this year and since the run of them Christmas Week.

🕯 I N T E L R U N N E R 🕯

🇺🇸 Average debt added over the holidays, 2015-2025

Holiday debt climbed the highest since 2022, with 37% of US consumers borrowing an average of $1,223...

📊 I N T E L R U N N E R 📊

🌍 The Global Returns Leaderboard for the week (plus two) ending in January 9th:

🥈 Ethereum 🔹 (+4%)

🥈 Industrial Metals 🌟 (+4%)

🥇 U.S. Small Caps 🇺🇸 (+5.7%)

🔽 CAD 🇺🇸 (-1.3%), EUR 🔣 (-0.9%), JPY 🔣 (-0.7%)

🔼 I N T E L R U N N E R 🔽

🌍 Central bank policy rate changes globally from 2020–2025...

🦅 I N T E L R U N N E R 💶

🌍 Value of merchandise imports from China divided by gross domestic product (GDP), expressed as a percentage

Services are not included. Based on IMF, OECD, and World Bank data.

🇨🇳 I N T E L R U N N E R 🇨🇳

🇮🇷 v. 🇮🇷 Oh.

Look at that totally natural collapse in the Iranian rial.

This one was clever. I'm surprised Tehran wasn't prepared for it.

📉 I N T E L R U N N E R 📉

🇺🇸 Speaking of regime change, we had one on October 29th of last year...

Since, the technology sector has been down 6.2% while everything in the S&P excluding tech has been up 5.3%.

This and the rotation to small caps have been the major shifts. The theme is breadth ascendant.

📈 I N T E L R U N N E R 📉

🇺🇸 "A meta-analysis published in The Lancet last year showed robust reductions in all-cause mortality and positive intermediate benefits from 6,000–12,000 steps per day."

🦶 I N T E L R U N N E R 🦶

🇪🇺 The price of natural gas in Europe is up 11.17% year to date. Why?

◽️Early Season Cold Snap - There were below average temperatures in Northern Europe multiple periods in the past few weeks.

◽️Fast Drawdowns in Storage - EU storage is down to 54-58% of capacity, which is shy of the 5-year seasonal average of 70%. This causes a premium due to greater risk of a tight supply by March.

◽️Incessant Geopolitical Risks - We made it through the Venezuelan scramble relatively unscathed, but the (materially amplified) civil unrest in Iran, the threat of further military action in the Middle East, and the antagonism toward Russian tankers is finally introducing a disruption potential premium.

◽️A Short Squeeze - Net shorts have decreased for three straight weeks—an accelerant for rallies as the weather turned cold and the geopolitics went hot (especially in this thin post-holiday market).

🔥 I N T E L R U N N E R 🔥

🇺🇸 If the 2025 stock market is broken down into deciles according to distance from their 200-day moving averages, then the most successful deciles were the top (10% of stocks furthest above their 200DMAs) and the bottom (10% of stocks furthest below their 200DMAs).

The top decile averaged 32%, while the bottom decile came up with 28%. Stocks closer to their 200DMAs produced much lower average returns, including 5-7% for the 3rd through 6th deciles.

This shows the value in momentum & growth as well as the classic sort of value in buying the right distressed equities...

📉 I N T E L R U N N E R 📈

💰 The Top Ten in Social Mentions Per Hour (every day in a sequence for the last three months)...

Bitcoin ($BTC) is still the undisputed champion in discussion volume, as you'd expect.

You can see Solana ($SOL) & Ethereum ($ETH) battling it out for the #2 L1 spot. That's in no way, shape, or form decided.

Ripple ($XRP) sits tightly in the 4th spot. The rest are a mix of Binance Coin ($BNB), Cardano ($ADA) and big meme coins of varying popularity ($DOGE, $PEPE, et cetera).

It's interesting to see ZCash ($ZEC) coming through more & more toward the end. There may be a bit of a privacy narrative developing...

💰 I N T E L R U N N E R 🔶

🥇 A third straight month of elevated central bank purchases in gold...

Tick tock.

Other Related Content
🟥Global Gold Reserves: The United States of America vs. The World [Sept 26] (+ Addendum on Europe)
🟩In Lieu of Glistening Gold, European Eyes Evince Gleams of Hollow Hope [Sept 30, NFU]
🟥Summary of Key Posts on Gold Through Q3 [Oct 2]
🟥The Gold/Silver Ratio Drops [Dec 2]
🟥The 50 Year Return on Gold Exceeds Bonds [Dec 7]
🟥Debasement Trade Goes Mainstream [Dec 14]
🟩Gold Priced in S&P 500 Shares Tells a Story [Dec 21, NFU]
🟥Gold's Best Year Since 1979 [Dec 31]

↗️ I N T E L R U N N E R ↗️

🇺🇸 The Micro-Cap ETF, the Russell 2000 (small caps), and the S&P 400 (mid-caps) are all up of late...

Returns over the last 3 months:

🟢$IWC — +10.23%
🟢$IWM — +8.49%
🟢$MDY — +8.35%

Returns against $SPY this year:

🟢$IWC — +4.49%
🟢$IWM — +4.36%
🟢$MDY — +3.24%

Related Content
🛑Regime Change in Sector Performance [Jan 12]
🛑Still Small Cap Season [Jan 9]
🛑Small Caps Rising [Dec 10]

📈 I N T E L R U N N E R 📈

🇺🇸 Positioning in mega-cap growth & Tech has been drifting lower from elevated levels while that in other cyclicals has been rising but is still below neutral...

The yawning gap is closing.

Yesterday: Tech is Down, Ex-Tech is Up

📊 I N T E L R U N N E R 📊

🌍 Where The World's Nuclear Power Comes From

🔤 South Korea 🇰🇷
26 gigawatts (from 26 reactors)

🔤 Russia 🇷🇺
27 gigawatts (from 36 reactors)

🔤 China 🇨🇳
55 gigawatts (from 57 reactors)

🔤 France 🇫🇷
63 gigawatts (from 57 reactors)

🔤 United States of America 🇺🇸
97 gigwatts (from 94 reactors)

📊 I N T E L R U N N E R 📊

🇺🇸 Amazon: Percentage of New Job Postings That Are Located in Offshore Countries

Part of an ongoing trend. Having developed a taste for cheap, less talented Indian imports, Amazon (and Microsoft, among other woefully ungrateful tech giants who should be punished) is exporting itself to India.

🛒 I N T E L R U N N E R 🛒

🇺🇸 The percent change in price per unit at a Georgia Walmart over the past year...

Each block represents one item in NPR's shopping cart, with a few examples highlighted.

Kleenex is down, and eggs are way down (if you buy the questionable ones). Bounty paper towels haven't moved. Coca-Cola and Head & Shoulders are up—super colossal shrimp and pocket paper folders are way up.

Many more products are up or the same rather than down year over year. Inflation continues to batter the masses, however much it's slowed.

📊 I N T E L R U N N E R 📊

🇺🇸 Non-Monetary Gold Exports (in billions of USD)

This will confuse people about GDP.

Cue the White House.

🪙 I N T E L R U N N E R 🪙

🇺🇸 Evolution of Atlanta Fed GDPNow real GDP estimate for Q4 [Quarterly percent change (SAAR)]

This has a whole lot to do with the last post on gold exports, but America is producing more pharmaceuticals domestically and that's good.

📈 I N T E L R U N N E R 📈

🌍 BRICS vs. G7: Real GDP Growth

The G7 is expected to average 1.2% growth, as opposed to BRICS' 3.7%.

The real GDP of BRICS economies is forecasted to grow more than three times faster than 67 nations in 2025 and 2026.

📊 I N T E L R U N N E R 📊

🇺🇸 Retail Sales, by Category, for November 2025

Total retail sales were up 0.6% while core retail sales gained 0.4%.

Sports, Hobbies, Books, & Music led with 1.9%, followed by Miscellaneous Stores (1.7%), Gas Stations (1.4%), and Building Materials (1.3%). Furniture & Home Furnishings brought up the rear with -0.1%.

🛍 I N T E L R U N N E R 🛍