A stunning three-day rally has catapulted the major indices back near their June all-time highs and, once again, has set a clear mandate for who has control of the market. The S&P 500 (SPX) has jumped 4% after almost reaching its 50-day average just three days ago. More impressively, the Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) has exploded 7.3% over the same time and has booked daily gains of more than 3% in two of the past three days. These are the best short-term advances since stocks were emerging from the "tariff tantrum" in April of 2025. Quick moves like this for the QQQ generally happen when the ETF is forming either a bottom after a correction/bear market or when it is breaking out after a decent decline and completing the bottoming process. This strength usually is not seen coming out of a minor 4.5% decline (as we just had).

When global economic conditions are uncertain, investors often flock to gold. When certainty returns, they may head in a different direction. This year is a case in point, as gold prices established a high for the century in January at $5,500 per ounce. But with seeming progress in winding down the Iran war, the price of gold drifted down to the $4,450 range, for a gain of about 2% for the year. Back in 2019, gold was at about $1,200 per ounce. That changed rapidly during the first phase of the pandemic, as the spot price for an ounce of gold jumped 33% in six months. Gold next spiked in 2022 due to the war in Ukraine. And over the past year, gold jumped another 33%, driven by global uncertainty over tariffs, among other developments. The current price reflects the perceived safety of hard assets amid global give-and-takes, as well as expectations for lower U.S. interest rates, which tend to weaken the dollar (the currency in which gold is priced). The outlook for Fed rate cuts also helps gold, as lower rates reduce the risk of a global recession and thus a decline in gold purchased for jewelry. Our forecast trading range for gold in 2026 is $4,000-$6,000 and our average price forecast is $4,500. This compares to an average gold price of $3,455 in 2025. Technically, the price of gold had been in a long-term bullish trend of higher highs and higher lows. But momentum may have stretched prices. On average, the price of gold has traded at a 6% premium to its 12-month moving average this century. The standard deviation is 9%. Earlier this year, the premium almost reached 40%, more than three standard deviations above the norm. As a fundamental valuation measure, we compare the price of gold to the value of the S&P 500. Over the past 45 years, the S&P 500 has been priced in a normal range of 3-to-1 times an ounce of old. A reading above 3 likely reflects too much confidence in the S&P 500, while a reading below 1 is a nosebleed price for gold. The current ratio is about 1.7, not far from average. As long as geopolitics are flaring and the global economy is wobbling, gold is likely to remain at elevated levels.

Broadcom is one of the largest semiconductor companies in the world and has also expanded into infrastructure software. Its semiconductors primarily serve computing and networking, with custom AI accelerators now accounting for the bulk of the business. It is primarily a fabless designer, but holds some manufacturing in-house, such as for its best-of-breed film bulk acoustic resonator filters that sell into the Apple iPhone. In software, it sells virtualization, infrastructure, and security software to large enterprises, financial institutions, and governments. Broadcom is the product of consolidation. Its businesses are an amalgamation of former companies like legacy Broadcom and Avago Technologies in chips, as well as VMware, Brocade, CA Technologies, and Symantec in software.

Newmont is the world's largest gold miner. It bought Goldcorp in 2019, combined its Nevada mines in a joint venture with competitor Barrick later that year, and also purchased competitor Newcrest in November 2023. Its portfolio includes 11 mines and interests in two joint ventures in the Americas, Africa, Australia, and Papua New Guinea. The company is expected to sell roughly 5.3 million ounces of gold in 2026 from its continuing mines after selling six higher-cost, smaller mines following the Newcrest acquisition. Newmont also produces material amounts of copper, silver, zinc, and lead as byproducts. It had about two decades of gold reserves, along with significant byproduct reserves at the end of December 2025.