EB Daily Market Report - Brief Update - Wednesday, January 7, 2026

Good afternoon!

The day kicked off with the ADP Employment Report, which showed 41,000 jobs, slightly below the expectation of 48,000.  That did little to deter buyers as our major indices gapped mostly higher at the opening bell and gains accelerated during the morning hours.  Large cap growth did see more buying today vs. large cap value, which was good to see.  Unfortunately, the early strength did not hold and selling took over this afternoon as the S&P 500 is down roughly 0.3% as of this writing.

Only two sectors are currently in positive territory, led by health care (XLV, +0.78%).  6 sectors are down over 1%, including utilities (XLU, -2.67%) and industrials (XLI, -1.85%).  Skyworks Solutions (SWKS, -10.42%) and First Solar (FSLR, -10.31%) are the worst performers on the S&P 500.  Meanwhile, Intel Corp (INTC, +6.00%) is streaking higher, but did fail to hold onto some of its earlier gains that would have forged a breakout to roughly a 20-month high.  That failure will likely lead to short-term weakness.  Be careful with INTC until it's able to close above 44.00.

Traders are still awaiting the big report - the December nonfarm payrolls that will be released on Friday morning at 8:30am ET.  It would certainly help the bulls to see the shift back to growth stocks continue for several more days.

Happy trading!

Tom