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Stocks Bounce Around While Global Leaders Meet, and Blizzards Past and Present

  • Writer: Doug MacGray
    Doug MacGray
  • Jan 25
  • 4 min read

January 25, 2026 STOCKS BOUNCE AROUND AS GEOPOLITICAL NEWS DOMINATES: Will the U.S. and Europe have a tariff and trade war? As that theme dominated the news, and as world leaders gave speeches in Davos, stocks sunk, and bounced, and then hovered as nervous investors settled down, and the week ended about where it started. Intel reported a larger-than-expected loss in its fourth quarter of 2025 earnings report, and the stock decreased by 17% (still up over 100% in the past year). Next week, four of the Magnificent Seven companies will report their fourth quarter of 2025 earnings, which will surely move markets.


LONGER-TERM PERFORMANCE: Below are the annualized three-year and five-year numbers for these same indices.

THE PCE INFLATION GAUGE: The Fed prefers to watch what is called the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index, an alternative inflation measure. The November PCE numbers just came out, and the 12-month inflation rise came in at 2.8%. It had been 2.7% the month before. This is a data point that is likely to solidify the Fed keeping the key interest rate unchanged this coming week. Personal income in November rose 0.3% compared to prices rising by 0.2%.


THE FED: The Federal Reserve will hold meetings this coming week, and the general consensus, to which I agree, is that it will leave interest rates unchanged when it announces its decision on Wednesday.


ANEMIC GROWTH: Germany is Europe's largest economy. That country is reporting a 0.2% increase in its gross domestic product for all of 2025, barely eking out a positive year. This follows two years of contraction (-0.9% in 2023 and -0.5% in 2024). Europe needs Germany's economy to recover if it is to experience economic health overall.

U.S. MORTGAGE RATES: After staying in a range between 6.15% to 6.35% for months, the average 30-year mortgage in the U.S. has ended at 6.06% and 6.09% in the past two weeks. A bit more downward movement would be nice.


GLOBAL POPULATION: We now have over 8 billion people on planet earth. In 1800, the global population was about one billion. Revolutionary technological advancements which resulted in massive gains in productivity, improved living conditions, longer life expectancies, and reduced child mortality rates fed huge population growth. Population growth rates peaked in the 1960s at a bit over 2% annually. Now it is about 1%. According to projections by the United Nations, over the next 50 years, the U.S. population will grow by 17% and Canada by 26%. India will grow by 16%. Russia will decrease by 12%, Japan and Italy will decrease by 30%, and Italy by 34%. Africa will go from having 17.5% of the world's population to 32%.


THE U.S. BUDGET DEFICIT: I run a business, and running a budget deficit is not an option. But the U.S. government consistently runs on deficits. The actions of the government during and after COVID caused massive increases in the deficit, and we need that to move in the right direction at the very least. In fiscal year 2025 (ended September 30), the U.S. now reports that the federal deficit was equal to 5.9% of the nation's gross domestic product. That is the first time it has been below 6% in three years. In 2018 it was 4.0%.


A BLIZZARD!!!: By the time this email goes out, we will be in the middle of a blizzard, according to weather reports. Of course, weather people get it wrong all the time (just like economists!), but they seem pretty sure of themselves this time. It started to get me ruminating about my freshman year in college when we had a massive blizzard in Massachusetts. The snow drifts were so high, I safely jumped out of our dorm's third floor window. A buddy of mine snapped pictures for posterity. I remember when I did this, the thought went through my head that this is a once in a lifetime experience. Yes it was.

Stay safe out there, and don't do anything stupid like this.


Have a great week!


Our purpose is to honor God by helping our clients see the objective, find the path, and navigate past the obstacles to a more prosperous future.



Douglas R. MacGray, J.D., C.F.P. ®

President

Stonecrop Wealth Advisors, LLC

Direct | Cell | Fax

(610) 628 4545



"Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives." James Madison


"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Matthew 6:21


SOURCES:

U.S. MORTGAGE RATES: YCharts.com


(c) 2026 Anno Domini, Stonecrop Wealth Advisors, LLC, All Rights Reserved


Investment advisory services offered through Stonecrop Wealth Advisors, LLC, a Registered Investment Advisor with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.


SDG

*S&P 500: This is a measure of the performance of the 500 largest companies in the United States, and it a common index to track the performance of U.S. equity markets, especially the large cap markets.

*MSCI All Country World Index X US: This is a broad measure of the performance of worldwide equity markets excluding the United States.

*Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate: This is a measure of the U.S. bond markets.

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