Image Source: Unsplash
 

Market indexes ramped up today on what appears to be a new tailwind of “risk on” trading. The US invasion of Venezuela, with President Trump’s stated purpose of controlling that country’s vast oil reserves, has emboldened investment in the oil & gas space. This comes as the narrative of an economic broadening out from the AI trade was just beginning to take hold.

All major indexes are off intra-day highs at the close, but the Dow nevertheless reached the bell at 48,977 — a record-high level. The blue-chip index gained +594 points on the day, +1.23%. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 gained +43 points, +0.64%, and is within 1% of its all-time high close. The Nasdaq similarly grew +160 points, +0.69%, while the small-cap Russell 2000 led the way: +39 points, +1.58%.

Venezuela Has Oil Traders Licking Their Chops
 

We saw some of the best performers of today’s trading session in oil & gas — particularly in refiners such as Valero (VLO - Free Report), up +9% today, and oilfield services giant SLB (SLB - Free Report), formerly Schlumberger, which also rose +9%. Phillips 66 (PSX - Free Report) moved up +7% on the day, while the Dow’s trading leader was integrated oil & gas supermajor Chevron (CVX - Free Report), +5.1% today. Venezuela reportedly has $17 trillion (with a “T”) in oil reserves.

Also, Latin American e-commerce giant MercadoLibre (MELI - Free Report) came in +8.8% higher today, largely on hopeful Venezuelan sentiment as well. As investors were on the lookout for places to make gains after rotating out of some of their AI-heavy gains in 2025, they clearly didn’t have to look farther than their daily news feed today.

Bank Stocks Higher on Promising Deregulatory 2026
 

Citigroup (C - Free Report) shares were up another +3.9% today, adding to its strong +65% gains over the past year — and roughly one week from the company’s Q3 earnings report hitting the tape. Citi is far from the only bank with a strong outperformance: Goldman Sachs (GS) is +53% over the same one-year time period, followed by Morgan Stanley (MS - Free Report) at +41% and JPMorgan (JPM - Free Report) +34%. An easing of regulatory standards rolling out through this year promises that big Wall Street firms and smaller regional banks are destined to benefit from this economic climate.

Jensen Huang Addresses CES This Afternoon
 

The keynote address from NVIDIA’s (NVDA - Free Report) CEO Jensen Huang is going on right now at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES). We are certain the discussion will continue to revolve around AI infrastructure development, with many analysts looking for the discussion to advance toward AI robotics and autonomous development. Another prediction we feel fairly secure about is that Huang will have a new leather jacket just for the occasion.

ISM Manufacturing Drops Off in December
 

Something of a lackluster report came out today from ISM Manufacturing for December, with a headline of 47.9% coming in at the lowest level since October of last year, and below the 48.3% analysts had been looking for. Both production and inventories came down in the month, while both new orders and backlogs improved for December. Count this as “mixed,” ultimately, even though this is a manufacturing print that is going the opposite direction from the 50-level which represents growth.

More By This Author: