This Week in Barrons: 1.25.2026

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• The Dodgers Payroll vs. Wealth Tax conundrum:  The back-to-back champion Dodgers just signed top free agent Kyle Tucker to a 4-year, $240M deal—pushing their 2026 payroll (including guarantees) to 67% above the next-closest team.  So much for money not buying titles.  The timing is notable, as California enters a heated debate over a new wealth tax.  [FYI: If MLB won’t impose a salary cap, voters may create the next best thing.]

• Financial advisor attrition … as headcount fell again in 2025 – but unevenly.  Independents remain the clear winners, while wire-houses lost fewer advisors than in prior years, hinting at a shift in how large firms are retaining talent. The classic “start at a wire-house, then leave” career path is changing.

• The Better Mousetrap fallacy … We’ve seen almost no meaningful mousetrap innovation in 100 years despite massive effort.  As Seth Godin notes: jumping headfirst into a new market rarely produces a better anything – but it often reveals a small group with a specific, unsolved problem.  By solving that specific problem you will earn trust, energize word-of-mouth, and ignite sales momentum.

• Ray Dalio & Gold … Ray Dalio said that investing today looks like the early 1970s and argue investors should hold up to 15% in gold.  Gold just hit a new high near $5,000/oz, which he frames as protection against monetary debasement and geopolitical risk.

• “Self-ware” vs Software … Anthropic’s Claude Code is having a breakout moment, pressuring traditional software stocks and accelerating the shift toward AI-built “Self-ware.”  Hype or not, SaaS now faces real disruption from tools that have turned users into developers.

• The Capitulation sequence … Markets bottom by following a pattern: volume shifts … then sentiment breaks … then options flows flip … and finally the technicals confirm the move.  Buyers need to remember:“Institutions don’t buy strength – they buy capitulation (forced selling).”

• Growth … U.S. GDP grew 4.4% in Q3, the fastest pace in two years (vs. 3.8% in Q2).

• Inflation / consumer … The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge sits a little higher at 2.8% (Nov), with incomes up 0.3% and spending up 0.5%.

• Metals explosion … Gold jumped ~9% to $4,983 - almost $5,000. Silver stole the show, breaking $100 and ending at $103 (+14% on the week, +36% in three weeks). Platinum rose 19%, and palladium increased by ~11%.

   

• It’s a Customer Support rebuild … Bland AI is replacing phone trees with brand-aware AI voice agents that resolve calls end-to-end – no menus, no hold music, just faster outcomes.

• Canada opens the door to Chinese EVs … Canada slashed its tariff on Chinese EVs from 100% to 6.1%, turning Toronto and Vancouver into a North American test market for BYD, Geely, and Xiaomi.  [FYI: If Chinese brands win Canadian consumers, U.S. tariffs get harder to defend.]

• Silver’s historic surge … After a 200% one-year run, silver’s market cap hit $5.35T, making it the world’s second-most valuable asset.

• The Tesla Insurance signal … Lemonade cut Tesla insurance rates 50%, citing data showing Full Self-Driving materially reduces accidents.

• Housing freeze … U.S. pending home sales fell in December to their lowest level since April 2020.

• Apple’s next wearable device … might be a wearable AI pin (2 cameras, 3 mics, speaker, magnetic charging), roughly AirTag-sized, launching in 2027.

• Corporate AI layoffs continue … Amazon will cut thousands more corporate roles as early as next week – another data point for AI-driven white-collar compression.

• OpenAI growth … OpenAI hit $20B in annualized 2025 revenue (up from $6B YoY) as daily active users continue making new highs.

• Vibe coding goes full-stack … Vibecode launched what it calls the first full-stack vibe-coding platform – turning plain English into complete web and mobile apps (frontend, backend, database) powered by Claude Code.

• AI moves into Health … Anthropic added four health integrations to Claude (Apple Health, Health Connect, HealthEx, Function Health) enabling cross-platform medical summaries and pattern detection.  Amazon followed with Health AI for One Medical – a 24/7 in-app assistant trained on your records, labs, and meds.

•  For the first time since 2007, Japan’s 40-year yield hit 4% - marking the end of Japan’s three-without penalty. 

  o This confirms a global carry-trade unwind and likely marks the start of the next phase of the U.S. Dollar’s (USD) instability. 

  o If Japan can’t anchor its own curve, the shock transmits through FX, energy pricing, and global risk models. 

  o This is the opening move in the Grand Repricing of Safety – as markets are operating under liquidity assumptions that are no longer valid.

• Tip #1:  Silver markets are behaving like a sudden, upside Re-pricing is coming.   

• Top 5 Macro Economic Themes per C. Thomas:

  o Bearish U.S. Dollar (medium/long term): expensive, fading yield support, weakening long-term technicals mixed with short-term countertrend rallies.

  o Bullish Emerging Market equities: attractive valuations, monetary tailwinds, improving earnings, light positioning, strong technicals.

  o Bullish China equities: strong technicals, cheap valuations, sentiment turning, early macro/monetary tailwinds.

  o Bullish commodities: cheap, supply-constrained, improving fundamentals, under-owned, skeptical sentiment, strong trends.

  o Bullish commodity equities: technicals supportive and leverage to higher prices, though valuations – especially in precious metals – are rising.

• 0DTE (Zero Days ‘Till Expiration) options are expanding into single-stock names … (TSLA, NVDA, AAPL, AMZN, META, MSFT, GOOGL, AVGO, IBIT) will gain Monday, Wednesday, and Friday expirations.  This isn’t just more contracts – it’s a structural change in how these stocks will trade.

  o Mega-caps will behave like the indexes … After 0DTE launched on the indices, price stopped respecting weekly expected moves and began trading off daily gamma exposure.  We had:

  §  Massive intraday dealer hedging,

  §  Volatility + compression divorcing themselves from news and fundamentals, and

  §  The Daily Expected Move (EM) > Weekly EM

  o Applying that to the most actively traded stocks. NVDA normally trades ~2.3m options/day, add expirations and:

  §  Volume will explode, gamma will spike,

  §  Intraday price action will become flow-driven by 0DTE hedging, and

  §  Traditional technical and swing setups will get destabilized

  o This impacts everyone, even non-0DTE traders.

  §  Overnight holders must understand embedded gamma.

  §  Weekly option traders will see liquidity pulled into daily expiries.

  §  Buy-‘n-Hold (Forever) will be the only approach largely insulated from these changes.

  o Conclusion: 0DTE is becoming the dominant market microstructure for anything that drives U.S. equity indices.

• Factually: (a) Bears have the statistical edge in mid-term election years.  (b) The global equity bull market is going strong and getting stronger.  (c) Implied correlations are low which is a risk signal – like the dot-com era.  (d) High valuations are supported by high expectations on profitability.  (e) The energy sector is undervalued, under allocated, and under-estimated.  Overall, per Callum Thomas: There are a fair amount of risk signals going off: seasonal headwinds, correlations, surging sentiment, and lofty expectations.  However, markets are showing strong momentum, bullish rotation, and compelling fundamental narratives.  Amongst all this there are some very interesting opportunities developing.

• Trading TIPS:

  - Tip #2 = BOT VZLA (small silver miner) @ $6.62 now = $6.65

  -  Tip #3 = BOT ATXRF (small copper & gold miner) @ $2.07 now = $3.15

  - Tip #4 = BOT more HYMC (small gold miner) @ $20.21 now = $50.65

  - Tip #5 = BOT more COPX (copper miner) @ 49.91 now @ $87.67

  - Tip #6 = BOT more ILF (S. America Emerging Markets) @ $33.41 now = $34.99

• HODLs: (Hold-On for Dear Life)

  - Holding / Reducing:

  o (o) Ethereum (ETH = 2,944 / in at $310)

  o (o) Bitcoin (BTC = $89,340 / in at $4,310)

  o (-) IBIT – Blackrock’s Bitcoin ETF ($50.7 / in at $24)

   

  - Increasing:

  o (+) Physical Commodities = Gold @ $4,983/oz. & Silver @ $103/oz.

  o (+) SLV (silver ETF) == ($92.99 / in at $27)

  o (+) HYMC (gold & silver miner) == ($50.6 / in at $11.8)

  o (+) GLD – Gold ETF ($458 / in at $212)

  o (+) GDX (gold miners) == ($107 / in at $52)

  o (+) COPX (copper ETF) == ($876 / in at $55.3)

  o (+) CCJ (uranium) == ($124 / in at $84)

  o (+) ILF (EM for S. America) == ($34.9 / in at $27.8)

  o (+) VZLA (small silver miner) == ($6.65 / in at $6.62)

  o (+) ATXRF (small copper & gold miner) == (3.15 / in at $2.47)

  o (+) QQQI (13% covered-call, QQQ’s divi. producer == pay mo.)

  o (+) ICSH (short term bonds = 4.65% yield == pay mo.)

   

  - Temp. Hedges:

  o (+) HTZ (Hertz) == BOT 20 Feb: $6 Call

   

   

  Please be safe out there!

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