Dollar bid
The dollar kept grinding toward a one-month high. No new Fed epiphany—just the usual mix of safe-haven demand and relative yield doing the work. In this tape, liquidity gets rewarded and anything with “optional” stamped on it gets cut.
There wasn’t much in the macro to change that posture. The U.S. trade deficit for 2025 came in at $901B, flagged as little changed versus the prior year, with December up modestly month over month. That’s not a catalyst. It’s more of the same: late-cycle conditions where funding and credit behavior matter more than second-order data prints.
Capex winners
Leadership stayed narrow and the market didn’t pretend otherwise. Deere (DE) was up and tracking its best month in 50 years after strong earnings and a bullish sales outlook. The beat helped, but the bigger point was the forward framing: demand was described cleanly enough that investors could actually underwrite it. People will pay for operating leverage when “automation” shows up in volumes, not just slides.
Utilities found sponsorship too—provided the growth came with receipts. CenterPoint Energy (CNP) rose after guiding to roughly 8% annual EPS growth through 2026 and pulling forward a $500M capital plan tied to a Houston-area demand surge. In a defensive market, regulated growth works when the spend is anchored to visible load and the earnings path is simple enough to hold through rate-case noise.
In materials, Glencore (GLEN.L) traded higher on reports it’s nearing a ~$4B sale of its Kazakhstan zinc mining business. Even before final terms, miners tend to get rewarded for trimming geopolitical headaches and turning messy assets into clean balance-sheet choices—delever, buy back stock, or redeploy. This is portfolio work, not a call on where zinc prints next week.
One datapoint that didn’t get much love: CVR Partners (UAN) was flat while targeting 95–100% ammonia plant utilization in Q1 2026 following reliability projects. The volume upside is real if execution holds, but the market wants proof and a friendlier fertilizer tape before paying for it.
Credit is talking
The clearest risk signal came from credit-sensitive names. Klarna dropped 25% after reporting higher bad-loan costs post-IPO. The move is the market marking down earnings power as loss curves steepen. In scaled consumer lending, small underwriting drift can turn into real P&L damage fast.
Leveraged finance told the same story in a different language: price. Consolidated Energy was flat while marketing a $330M leveraged loan to subsidiaries reportedly at the steepest discount since 2023. That’s buyers demanding more compensation and being selective about where they provide balance sheet. Equity can ignore it for a day; this is how refinancing windows quietly tighten.
Claros was a reminder that credit isn’t shut, it’s judgmental. The company disclosed it has resolved $2.5B in loans and plans portfolio expansion post-2026. Stabilization and structure still get funded; “growth at any spread” doesn’t.
What mattered
- Dollar strength was positioning and safety, not fresh policy news.
- The market still pays for capex visibility and straightforward demand (DE, CNP).
- Portfolio simplification got rewarded (GLEN.L); complexity is a tax again.
- Credit is flashing caution via Klarna’s loss costs and leveraged-loan discounts—signals that tend to spread when funding gets tighter.