01/09/26 Afternoon CommStock Report – New Year, New Seasonal Effects

There has been much ado about the institutional fund rebalancing period that kicked off on Thursday and stretches a handful of sessions. The related market impact was most present in equities, where high-flying tech companies like Nvidia and Apple saw selling pressure while sectors that were more downtrodden in 2025, such as energy and consumer staples, found buying interest. In the commodity futures market, focus was on the rotational trade in gold and silver. Early Thursday weakness for the metals may have involved a measure of front-running by traders into the rebalancing window; indeed, the effect of institutional selling seemed evident as gold and silver futures broke lower in the immediate lead up to their 12:30 central settlement time. Friday morning’s metal price strength suggested that the portfolio reallocation was a lesser influence against inputs like the jobs report and compared to larger flows of capital that were unconstrained by position weighting rules.   If anything, fund rebalancing at the start of the year invites a reassessment of the market outlook for 2026 based on possible lessons from what went up and what went down in 2025. For the metals to continue where they left off last year means other…