In this issue:
Indexes: The stock market drifts higher, but in reality, it’s been close to “net zero” since the end of October. How quickly folks forget where they’ve just been, in terms of major index levels.
ETFs: Fewer and fewer matter to me. I think that’s why my recent article on the 10-ETF Allocation portfolio we run for subscribers here turned out to be the most popular article I’ve written in my 3+ years at Seeking Alpha. That’s #1 out of nearly 700 articles. I review and update that portfolio below, as I do every week at this time.
Stocks: Depending on what time of day you look at your screen, the cool kids in tech, or the others, are leading. And frequently, they are acting less correlated, at least temporarily. I discuss what I see there.
Plus, my latest market thoughts, and the latest update to the ROAR Score. Here’s the Weekly ROAR.
“Robservations”
Weekly market thoughts from Rob Isbitts
I’ve been doing this for more than 30 years, and I can tell you: this is the most opportunistic AND dangerous market environment I’ve ever seen. We are operating in a “drunken market” where price discovery has been replaced by headline-driven algorithms and a “casino” mentality. That said, I’m happy to feast on trading situations, in which I take measured risk and “Avoid Big Loss (ABL) at every turn. If you’ve been with us here for a while, you are familiar with Rob’s “same old song and dance.” But it’s a new year, and this is the first issue of 2026, so I figured I’d set the baseline. Again.
NOTE: just below this paragraph, if you are a paid subscriber to ETF Yourself, you will see the rest of this week’s report. If you are not a paid subscriber, you’ll see that annoying “you must subscribe” thing appear. And the rest will not be visible.
We re-opened ETF Yourself as a paid service last year, and were blown away by the response. Thank you! But many still follow us for free, and don’t get to see what’s behind that paywall. We figured the new year is a good time to do what we rarely do here: strongly encourage our free followers on Substack and elsewhere to try ETFYourself.com.
Why now? Because 2025 was possibly a “dress rehearsal” for some very freaky market conditions in 2026. I see signs of it every single day. In the stock and bond markets, and now in the “3 Cs”: commodities, currencies and crypto as well.
So we’ve added a sweetener, in case you didn’t get enough dessert this holiday season (said no one, ever!).
Tomorrow, we are sending our paid subscribers a special issue of the Weekly ROAR, a summary of many of the key topics we covered here last year. Essentially a “best of the Weekly ROAR,” looking back AND ahead to the new year. Because the themes have not really changed much.
To get the special review/preview issue of The Weekly ROAR, sign up for a 1-month trial for $15. Or join us for a year at $150 and save a few bucks. We also have a premium subscription level, which elevates your service to be able to join us at our weekly Live session.
There, I review what’s top-of-mind, dive deeper into the tools we use here, and answer all of your questions live. We also record these sessions, so the premium membership gets you more than 50 hours a year of live education. We think it’s worth a try. If you do too, join us.