"99% of bearish narratives are really metaphors explaining an inability to manage cash wisely." "Simple doesn't mean wrong, anymore than complicated means right." "Systems are mostly foolproof, until humans engage the system. Do it right or don’t do it at all... it demands proper dedication else there’s no possibility of cognitive retention of scale and practicality." – SETH GOLDEN, CHIEF MARKET STRATEGIST AT FINOMGROUP.COM (CONTRIBUTOR/PREMIUM MEMBERS ONLY)
MID-WEEK SUMMARY
THURSDAY, JANUARY 22ND, 2026
Welcome to Market Mania #25! – Betting on Process, Not Prophecy
Finom Group’s latest 2026 report titled “Quickly Going Nowhere with a Dirty Market Dynamic”, sharpens a theme that’s been building for two years: this bull market is being driven far more by process and probabilities than by predictions or macro theatrics. The S&P500 has already tagged Finom Group’s 6,800 objective MUCH faster than anticipated, validating both the strength of the post–April 8th Zweig Breadth Thrust and the utility of treating that target as a six‑month guidepost rather than a ceiling. From here, the strategy is explicit: keep 6,800 as the Q1 “anchor/base,” then extend to a 12‑month objective of 7,500 (just under the median Street target), only so long as the expansion cycle remains intact and no genuine endogenous/exogenous shock emerges.
Would Trump humiliate himself once more during the 250th Semiquincentennial Anniversary of the USA 🇺🇸?
REMEMBER… FED/TRUMP PUTS almost always lend to bear markets thereafter!… Can we get 5 bear markets in 8 years under POTUS DJT? Lower your expectations and returns will follow! 😉
If you glorify the idea of Fed or Trump “Put”, it essentially forecasts a bear market📉
4 bear mrkts in 7yrs for Powell 3 bear markets in 4yrs+ for Trump. Trump presided over ATH and 3rd highest $VIX in history.
Glorifying a fictitious Put, or just lazy Wall Street analysis😉 pic.twitter.com/wDQ5f9OlpA
— Seth Golden (@SethCL) August 6, 2025
Earnings contribution at Dotcom Bubble peak.
Earnings contribution during AI Boom.
One of theses is fundamentally supported, and will not end akin to the other. Can you guess which is which?
Be sure to tip your waiter, figuratively speaking!$SPX $SPY $QQQ $AAPL $NVDA $MU… pic.twitter.com/YqSig9DfWR
— Seth Golden (@SethCL) January 22, 2026
Seth Golden’s research leans heavily into the Bullish TOY Barometer (high-significance QUANT), which just fired and now joins the already‑undefeated ZBT as a kind of twin foundation for 2026 risk-taking. Historically, when the TOY period (roughly late November to mid‑January) finishes up more than 3%, the S&P 500 has delivered positive 12‑month returns 96% of the time with an average gain north of 16%—and the only real failures (1987, 2018) were tied to dramatic exogenous shocks: Black Monday and an aggressively tightening Fed. That backdrop is why Seth is comfortable both raising the formal 12‑month price objective and wiring an additional $700k of personal capital into his Schwab account to lean into the signal, but doing so in a scaled way relative to an even stronger ZBT setup.
Most bullish quant signal was triggered Friday, with $SPX gaining 4% in TOY Barometer period!
I will be allocating $700k additional capital to my portfolio to lean into this such Bullish signal.
More in this Sunday's macro-market Research Report (*members only)$ES_F $SPY $QQQ… pic.twitter.com/q9wYdapJa2
— Seth Golden (@SethCL) January 17, 2026
The macro section is where the report gets blunt. It argues that macroeconomics is where a lot of smart people go to miss great trades, not because the data is useless, but because it is so often miscast as predictive when they are purely descriptive. Buffett’s long‑standing indifference to macro forecasting is paraphrased into a single idea: the economy almost always finds its way back to growth, while “macro‑first” investors spend years trying to dodge a recession that never quite arrives. The Sahm Rule’s 2024 trigger—no recession since—becomes Exhibit A, and a long list of actual recession catalysts since 1973 (oil embargo, Gulf War, 9/11, mortgage leverage, Covid) reinforces the point: every recession has been driven by an exogenous or endogenous shock, not a line wiggling on an indicator chart.
Every. Recession. since 1973 an endogenous/exogenous event!
1973 Oil Embargo
1980 credit card/M2 boom/Inflation spike
1982 lingering inflation forced Central Bank recession
1990 Gulf War/Kuwait/Iraq/oil spike
2001 Sept. 11
2008 mortgage deregulation and 40X leverage
2020 Covid…— Seth Golden (@SethCL) March 9, 2025
The labor data frame it cleanly: with stocks just off all‑time highs and year‑over‑year initial jobless claims still well below the +10% threshold that has historically preceded recessions, the economy is not broadcasting demand‑side stress. “Leading indicators” have been screaming trouble for over two years, yet neither profits nor employment have cracked in a way that matches those sirens. The report’s conclusion is not that risk is low, but that risk lives in shocks, not in the consensus obsession with indicator religion.
Today’s Market Mania, then, ties all of this together: a fast‑achieved 6,800 target that now stretches toward 7,500; a fresh Bullish TOY Barometer layered on top of an undefeated Zweig Breadth Thrust; and a macro backdrop that remains noisy but operationally benign, with no genuine leading signal of recession beyond narrative fatigue. The marching orders remain the same: elevate process over predictions, treat dips as opportunities within a still‑expanding cycle, and remember that printed economic lines don’t cause anything – they only reflect where we’ve been.
CHART(S) OF THE WEEK
🏆 TODAY’S CHART OF THE WEEK WAS SHARED BY SETH GOLDEN (@SethCL):
🏆 CHART OF THE WEEK: Largest 100 vs S&P 500
This week’s setup in small caps is the perfect complement to the S&P 100 vs. S&P 500 RSI blow‑up: the generals are gassed while the “little guys” are suddenly sprinting, and neither trend is as simple—or as safe—as the surface suggests.
WoW 🤯 AMAZING!!!
S&P100 (largest stocks in $SPX ) vs. S&P500's 14-day RSI is even weaker than during COVID 2020 plunge.
Either something bad is going to happen in markets through MAG-7 earnings season or this is a pretty incredible inflection point higher.$OEX $ES_F $SPY… pic.twitter.com/PZbhxWwemD
— Seth Golden (@SethCL) January 22, 2026
Start with Seth’s chart: the S&P 100 relative to the S&P 500 has rolled over from record highs while its 14‑day RSI has plunged to levels weaker than during the 2020 Covid crash. That’s an extraordinary degree of momentum exhaustion in the biggest stocks on the board. Either the market is front‑running something truly ugly into Mag‑7 earnings, or this is a classic, violent sentiment washout that sets up a sharp leadership re‑acceleration once earnings clear. With no confirming breakdown in credit, GDP, or forward EPS in our 2026 work, the burden of proof still lies AGAINST the “something terrible is coming” camp, and instead with the idea that the “LAG SEVEN” may be approaching a significant inflection higher.
Into that vacuum, small caps have surged to all‑time highs. The S&P 600 and Russell 2000 have logged their strongest run of outperformance versus the S&P 500 since 2019 and are already up mid‑ to high‑single digits year‑to‑date, handily beating SPY and QQQ.
On paper, it reads like the long‑awaited “small‑cap renaissance.” Under the hood, it’s more complicated. The small‑cap advance/decline lines are not confirming the price breakout. That kind of breadth divergence has always mattered more for small caps than for the Nasdaq, which can lean on cap‑weighted behemoths to drag the index higher. Here, you don’t have that luxury; when price rips and breadth lags, it’s a yellow flag, not an all‑clear.
Seasonality adds another twist. The famous January Effect—small caps crushing large caps in January—is a shadow of its former self. Early‑ and mid‑20th‑century data show massive January excess returns for small caps, but in recent decades the anomaly has faded and migrated, with the best small‑cap relative returns often showing up in November and December as managers front‑run the trade. In the 2020s, January’s average excess is barely positive. So while this January pop fits the old story, it doesn’t carry the same statistical edge it once did.
Where the move gets real support is from the bigger structural context:
Put side by side, the two charts—S&P 100 RSI capitulation and small‑cap/median‑stock breakouts—tell one story: the market is forcibly rotating away from the largest winners into everything that has lagged. Some of that is rational repricing (Mag‑7 capex and AI digestion), some of it is seasonal and technical (Year‑6, November–February effect, tax‑loss reversal), and some of it is pure “sell what you own, buy what’s been left behind.”
The key message for our Chart of the Week:
In other words, this week’s charts don’t say “abandon the generals, all in on the troops.” They say “the troops have finally joined the fight just as the generals hit RSI exhaustion”—and in past cycles, that’s been the setup where disciplined investors use broadening to add, not to flip the entire leadership script.
BONUS:
Small-cap (S&P600/RUT) indices all-time high
Survivable trend? If looking for confirmation from its Advance/Decline Line, look away.
Doesn't have the cap-weight strength of Nasdaq Composite (always similar situation) to ignore such breadth divergence.$SPX $IWM $SML $RUT $SPY… pic.twitter.com/1ad48lO4OH
— Seth Golden (@SethCL) January 22, 2026
But playing the bookends of the year, November through February, has worked well during this rough stretch for the little guy.
— The Leuthold Group (@LeutholdGroup) January 21, 2026
Small-caps $RUT $IWM have never been negative in Year 6 of Decennial Cycle.
Small-caps are up +8.4% in 2026 already
Average return in Year 6 = +13.8%
Best Year 6 was 1976 = +58%.$RTY $SPX $SPY $QQQ $NYA $TNA $IWC
h/t @AlmanacTrader pic.twitter.com/Rkl8sLKVzN— Seth Golden (@SethCL) January 16, 2026
when Value Line Geometric Index at 3-Year High$RUT higher 💯 of time 12-mn fwd$RSP S&P higher 💯 of time 12-mn fwd$XVG higher 💯 of time 12-mn fwd$SPX 94% of time 12-mn fwd (*1976)$SPY $QQQ $Nya h/t @NautilusCap pic.twitter.com/QnzfxW8Rmy
— Seth Golden (@SethCL) January 18, 2026
QUOTE(S) OF THE WEEK
New goals don't deliver new results. New lifestyles do. And a lifestyle is a process, not an outcome. For this reason, all of your energy should go into building better habits, not chasing better results.
— James Clear (@JamesClear) January 14, 2026
Clarity comes from action. pic.twitter.com/mrGEdOjFAN
— Reads with Ravi (@readswithravi) January 15, 2026
Overthinking is often just fear dressed up as analysis.
— Schaeffer's Investment Research (@schaeffers) January 16, 2026
Valuations don't matter when everyone is underweight!
~David Tepper
— Seth Golden (@SethCL) July 14, 2023
Muscles don’t grow when you do easy reps.. they grow at the point of failure.
The tremble.. the burn.. that last ugly rep..
That’s the signal, not the setback.Human goals work the same way.
If it feels like you’re breaking down, you might actually just be building capacity.
— Schaeffer's Investment Research (@schaeffers) January 19, 2026
"The simplest formula for a pretty nice life: independence plus purpose. The independence to do what you want, and the wisdom to want to do meaningful things." – @morganhousel
— Ryan Hawk (@RyanHawk12) January 19, 2026
“Nothing gives you a clearer look into someone than how they misinterpret things; every misinterpretation is a confession.”
— Gurwinder (@G_S_Bhogal) January 18, 2026
Every challenge contains a lesson. Don’t waste the opportunity to grow.
— Frank Cappelleri (@FrankCappelleri) January 19, 2026
There is scientific evidence that the people you surround yourself with determine your outcomes. Your environment creates your reality. Choose wisely. pic.twitter.com/bgDEvUaxKA
— Sahil Bloom (@SahilBloom) January 18, 2026
My favorite @morganhousel tweet: pic.twitter.com/GoOURSvYN8
— Brian Feroldi (@BrianFeroldi) January 19, 2026
Vía @SethCL: “When your stock is going higher never have enough
And when going down you have too much
If you can work contrary to those behavioral heuristics you will do very well
Gotta look at days like today as grand opportunities
STOP CARRYING ABOUT THE DRAWDOWNS!!!
— Finom Group AYNI Luis Solórzano (@aynirealtor) January 20, 2026
Be humble. Be teachable. The universe is bigger than your view of the universe. There's always room for a new idea.
— Prof. Feynman (@ProfFeynman) January 19, 2026
Fintwit archive, 2016. pic.twitter.com/NOBNP0bYw9
— Ed Borgato (@EdBorgato) January 21, 2026
Investing quote of the day: pic.twitter.com/QnUGZXeJCf
— Meb Faber (@MebFaber) January 21, 2026
“If you can't be a pine on the top of the hill, be a scrub in the valley.
But be the best little scrub on the side of the rill, be a bush if you can't be a tree.
If you can't be a highway, just be a trail.
If you can't be the sun, be a star…
— Finom Group AYNI Luis Solórzano (@aynirealtor) January 19, 2026
Small gains compound over time!
If you have time, work on small gains next! pic.twitter.com/UVLddzgLHi
— Seth Golden (@SethCL) January 19, 2026
TOP 10 TWEETS OF THE WEEK
There will be another drawdown in 2026.
Just like there was in every year before it.
But downside volatility isn’t the enemy of high returns – it’s the reason they exist. pic.twitter.com/rvuJGkh42Z— Peter Mallouk (@PeterMallouk) January 15, 2026
Ignore at your own peril bears 🧸
When NYSE new 52-wk highs surpassed 100 and more than doubled the prior day💥
n = 27 since 2000
📢1 and 3 months forward positivity rate = 97%
Avg. 1 and 3 months gain = +3.2% and +6.4% 💰$SPX $ES_F $SPY $QQQ $IWM $NYA $NDX $DIA $SMH
h/t… pic.twitter.com/0ouoH9QiAw— Seth Golden (@SethCL) January 16, 2026
A lesson in how to value a stock
Amazon $AMZN is trading at a lesser P/E to both Costco $COST and Walmart $WMT
How can that be given its growth rate? What growth rate?
On a P/S basis (chart 2) AMZN more than doubles COST and WMT. How a stock is actually valued matters. pic.twitter.com/vCFCok5MzY
— Seth Golden (@SethCL) January 16, 2026
Multifamily housing delinquency rate highest in history.
Sounds concerning, but for as low as it was 2007, it didnt inform anything about 2008 recession.
If that doesn't suggest you need to better understand the value of the denominator, I don't know what will.
This is like… pic.twitter.com/C1Q2PIZ7gQ
— Seth Golden (@SethCL) January 16, 2026
🚨 Broad Market OVERBOUGHT
NYSE Bullish Percent Index will hit 70 today, triggering SAVVY OVERBOUGHT signal. Historically, this has been met with a pullback in the coming days.
Like the market broadening out? Do the right thing!$SPX $NYA $IWM $SPY $QQQ $NDX $DIA $ES_F $VIX… pic.twitter.com/Dhw0N2hg5H
— Seth Golden (@SethCL) January 16, 2026
Markets DO NOT follow earnings for ANY SINGLE YEAR, they follow _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _.
It angers people when I disseminate the following Earnings $SPX data, making all their study and concerns about earnings wasteful. Nobody likes to admit they've wasted time
The market has more… pic.twitter.com/0c9FxmBIFJ
— Seth Golden (@SethCL) May 10, 2025
An absolutely insane wealth generating machine for 100 years now. You have to reach the 6th bucket to get to negative returns. https://t.co/HJQn4TgDB2
— Michael Antonelli (@BullandBaird) January 15, 2026
Here's why: pic.twitter.com/TJDk8zigrs
— RenMac: Renaissance Macro Research (@RenMacLLC) January 9, 2026
All 11 S&P500 $SPX sectors have climbed back above their 200-DMAs.
Since 1928, S&P500 has delivered an annualized return of +11.5% when all 11 sectors above 200-DMA, the highest of any threshold achievement.
Breadth is not good, ITS THE BEST IT CAN BE!$ES_F $SPY $QQQ $IWM… pic.twitter.com/b1zRDg41pp
— Seth Golden (@SethCL) January 20, 2026
A 15-0 S&P THANKSGIVING WEEK BAROMETER SIGNAL
Define Thanksgiving week as the S&P return during the four-day Thanksgiving week, Friday Close to Friday Close.
With this year's 3.73% Thanksgiving week, we now have sixteen cases of a +2% Thanksgiving week, digging back to 1930 in… pic.twitter.com/cXE4FbV759
— Wayne Whaley (@WayneWhaley1136) November 29, 2025
#1987 is popping up on objective analogs …. 96% 5-year correlation. pic.twitter.com/TTrGkQATCf
— Nautilus Research (@NautilusCap) January 18, 2026
Given the pullback since, this is clearly not the Dotcom bubble. Investors "learnt" their lesson since then, like consumers "learnt" their lesson since GFC. https://t.co/peYmrM7TZf
— Seth Golden (@SethCL) January 16, 2026
It's Different This Time:
CHEAPER valuations compared to Largest in 2000. In both absolute terms and relative to rest of $SPX today's MAG-7 generate more cash flows per dollar of assets and have grown sales much faster than Largest 7 stocks in 2000 $NDX $QQQ $SPY $ES_F… pic.twitter.com/xMGZ6Ll3FO
— Seth Golden (@SethCL) November 5, 2025
Health Care has trailed the S&P 500 by almost 60% over the last three years, the weakest cycle on record going back to 1973. Prior oversold cases approaching or exceeding 2.0 standard deviations have occurred at or near relative strength lows for the sector. pic.twitter.com/8saqwo0U5k
— Rob Anderson, CFA (@_rob_anderson) January 17, 2026
After greater than 3% gain during TOY window, S&P 500 finished the year higher 36 out of 38 times. Even more interesting: January, typically a weak month after a 15%+ prior year or in midterm years, shows the highest monthly hit rate over 84% with an average gain of 3.49% $SPY https://t.co/kn9vexDvJM pic.twitter.com/Hj0l42Zgaw
— Bluekurtic Market Insights (@Bluekurtic) January 19, 2026
Russell 2000 EPS growth: 66% this year.
Perhaps folks are catching on… with $IWM up every day in 2026 so far (11/11) GS pic.twitter.com/zabKtlHXMM
— Mike Zaccardi, CFA, CMT 🍖 (@MikeZaccardi) January 17, 2026
Fact vs. Fiction
It's a common mistake to suggest 2018's negative annual return and bear market was due to Fed raising rates and commencing passive QT.
In reality, it was analysts projecting negative EPS growth in 2019 and market being a forward discounting mechanism.$SPX… pic.twitter.com/qtPv7UHRgQ
— Seth Golden (@SethCL) January 18, 2026
How does $SPX get to 7,600+
🔸FY 2026 EPS = $311
🔸FY 2027 EPS = $358
🔸Mid2026 = $311 + 1/2 difference $358
🔸YE2026 = 23X x $334 EPS = 7,682The math never fails, it's just a matter of failing to do the math.$ES_F $SPY $QQQ $IWM $NYA $SMH $NVDA $AAPL pic.twitter.com/Kae9yWas5j
— Seth Golden (@SethCL) January 18, 2026
When Fed isn't doing much, the Fed Fund Rate is relatively flat, stocks do VERY well!
RBC's Lori Calvasina: "Historically, when the Fed has made modest cuts in a 12-month period (that amount to 1% or less), $SPX has gone up by +13.3% on average." $ES_F $SPY $QQQ $IWM $NYA… pic.twitter.com/Csz9v8YUa9
— Seth Golden (@SethCL) January 18, 2026
Houston… come in!
My historically perfect buy-the-dip indicator just did something not seen since 2021. While this signals strongly-trending breadth, the gap-and-go suggests an area for which consolidation becomes highly probable. $SPX $NYA $SPY $QQQ $RUT $IWM $DIA $NDX $SMH pic.twitter.com/ozSEX4yHfx
— Seth Golden (@SethCL) January 18, 2026
What happens when youre 100% above the 200-DMA? Asking for a friend?
The sad thing is no matter where the concentration, it always ends with the need for liquidity and the liquidity getting pulled from equities. So if you don't think Silver would impact S&P…$SLV $GLD $SPX… pic.twitter.com/3iBIjtFZxt
— Seth Golden (@SethCL) January 18, 2026
🙏
Incredible that household net worth is basically 7.7x disposable income, up from 6.8x in 2019 and 6x at the top of the dot-com bubble
2 more charts:
– Showing how it’s mostly equity market gains, plus some real estate, that has driven this
– But debt is also much lower pic.twitter.com/OFTE3Bqfjh— Sonu Varghese (@sonusvarghese) January 21, 2026
Economic reacceleration, consumer strapped with cash, CAPEX spend offsetting labor market softness, neutralized reflation, housing stabilizing, PMIs to rebound, no multiple expansion, Tech valuations falling, everything rally breadth tailwind, China doesn’t permit domestic… pic.twitter.com/IsBwqb1mBD
— Seth Golden (@SethCL) January 20, 2026
The S&P 500 has continued to follow the 1998-2000 price analog, but without the excesses. Breadth appears much better today, and the mega growth leadership has been trading at a fraction of the valuations that were experienced in 1999. That’s hardly a bubble, which suggests that… pic.twitter.com/2qlOK4TF17
— Jurrien Timmer (@TimmerFidelity) January 20, 2026
There's no such thing as a K-shaped economy, there's just the absence of a recession post a major inflationary spike, which has otherwise delivered a recession every other time, but the present.
The only thing that resets prices and wages is a recession, absent that you have…
— Seth Golden (@SethCL) January 21, 2026
There is NO SUCH THING as cash on the sidelines designated for equities.
The only time such flows occur from MM to stock market is with RECESSION and Bear Market, not one or the other, but both must be present, as annotated.$SPX $TLT $SPY $QQQ $NYA $IWM $DIA $SOXX $TMF $GLD… pic.twitter.com/GSKIgo5x2M
— Seth Golden (@SethCL) January 21, 2026
The absurdity of getting bearish AI prior to OpenAI debuting as a public company will become obvious this year.
Wall Street builds momentum into defining events.
What we have been seeing since November is a shakeout, filled with misinformation, to get as many investors on the…
— Zenolytics (@AMeshkati) January 21, 2026
Saas stocks about to bottom
Meanwhile his asshat cohost Davids Sack was paying 1000 times sales for saas startups before quitting to be czar of ai and crypto.
god help us https://t.co/KAZQsmYwt0
— Howard Lindzon (@howardlindzon) January 22, 2026
Getting worried about 7000?$SPX shows no stalling near big round levels. Within 1% of 1K-pt marks. 1 and 3 months fwd, higher 86% of time.
The longer-term stat is wild: 100% of the 1-year returns were positive, averaging a +16.29% gain!! Worst return was still a 4%+ gain!… pic.twitter.com/0MQ5Z0iGp1
— Seth Golden (@SethCL) January 22, 2026
As suggested:
"Using Put/Call Ratio to identify forward returns for $SPX is essentially a coin flip. May work in certain regimes, but not consistently."
Since 1995, SPX 4-wk frwd returns show no meaningful dependence on the Put/Call Ratio.
As expected, the higher probability… https://t.co/fMMswjqqIo pic.twitter.com/M6RF4vLuGn
— Seth Golden (@SethCL) January 22, 2026
Mike Wilson: Should investors stick with small caps despite the falling cumulative probability of Fed rate cuts this year?
Yes—fundamentals are improving and driving relative outperformance.
Small cap earnings growth is at its strongest level since 2022 (+8% Y/Y, up from -8%… pic.twitter.com/nZKbmoQa2L
— Neil Sethi (@neilksethi) January 22, 2026
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FINOM GROUP – RECENT REPORTS
November 30, 2025 – 2026 FULL YEAR MACRO-MARKET OUTLOOK RESEARCH REPORT
December 21, 2025
December 28, 2025
January 11, 2026
January 18, 2026
Quickly Going Nowhere, With A Dirty Market Dynamic
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