Everything was going just swimmingly last week until Friday's Supreme Court decision derailed President Trump's signature tariff policy, saying, in a 6-3 decision, that the tariffs imposed by President Trump were not lawful (some may say, illegal) under the terms of the IEEPA. The ruling sets in motion discussion and almost certainly, lawsuits, from countries and/or companies that paid the tariffs and will subsequently seek refunds.
In the meantime, Trump made a sweeping declaration, imposing 10% tariffs on all U.S. imports, raising it to 15% (the maximum allowable by law) hours later. The law gives the president 150 days of tariff authority without congressional approval under trade law section 122. Trump has other options, including the use of Section 301, to impose tariffs on countries deemed "unjustifiable" or "burdens or restricts" US business interests.
Probably nothing, but in light of the Supreme Court ruling Friday, India cancelled a trade delegation's trip to DC. Recall just a few weeks ago, the Boaster-in-Chief was hailing his "deal" with India as a major accomplishment. He also suggested that India had halted their buying of Russian crude oil and promised to purchase $500 billion worth of American goods and services. Um, no.
There was little to no discernible market impact from the court ruling or Trump's latest dictate. Stocks rose on Friday as the U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford steamed through the Mediterranean en route to the Arabian Sea where it would join the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, ostensibly preparing for an assault on Iran, essentially because the Iranians don't like he idea of leaving themselves defenseless against America, Israel, or anybody else, for that matter.
Lost in conversation was the BEA report of 4th quarter 2025 GDP collapsing to 1.4%, dropping the 225 full year GDP to a disappointing 2.25%, or the PCE index remaining relatively stable at 2.6%.
The week's events leave the U.S. economic picture just a little bit muddier. Probably nothing.
Stocks
This week, Wall Street declared the selling off of companies primarily in the business of software because of the treat from AI to be over.
It's not. It's only just begun.
Oracle (ORCL), Intuit (INTU), Salesforce (CRM), Adobe (ADBE), and AppLovin (APP) lost between 13% and 30% over the past month. Adobe was hit the least (13.72%); Intuit the most (30.52%). The main culprit appears to be Anthropic's Claude Sonnet 4.6 AI product, which made a quantum leap over previous versions in terms of computational skills and coding knowledge.
These companies and others are at serious risk unless they can quickly incorporate AI into their product mix. They may be doomed no matter what they do, as AI operability is scaling quickly and Anthropic's model is very good at writing code and producing apps.
Stocks managed to fight off nagging negative news and continue pumping money into the bubble. Stock valuations are at their highest level in history, as if U.S. industrial and business dominance overrides excessive debt and obvious ploys like stock buyback programs to artificially boost corporate earnings. As always, the sky's the limit, until it isn't.
In volume terms, this was one of the most sluggish weeks in recent memory. Market participants are looking for some kind of catalyst and they'r not getting any from earnings, AI buildout or job-crunching fears, or the "bomb Iran" waiting game.
Earnings season is winding down. The most important earnings reports will be fiew and spread across the week with focus on miners, retailers Home Depot and TJX, and Dow component, Salesforce. Nvidia is likely to take all the air out of the room Thursday, reporting after the close Wednesday.
Monday: (before open) Domino's Pizza (DPZ), Dominion Energy (D), FreshPet (FRPT); (after close) Kratos (KTOS), Primoris (PRM), Hims|Hers (HIMS)
Tuesday: (before open) Home Depot (HD), NRG (NRG), Planet Fitness (PLNT); (after close) AMC Entertainment (AMC), Cava (CAVA), Mercado Libre (MELI), Workday (WDAY), First Solar (FSLR), HP Inc. (HPQ)
Wednesday: (before open) TJX Companies (TJX), Photronics (PLAB), Lowe’s (LOW); (after close) Nvidia (NVDA), SalesForce (CRM), Synopsis (SNPS),
Thursday: (before open) Baidu (BIDU), Rackspace (RXT), Royal Bank of Canada (RY); (after close) Dell (DELL), CoreWeave (CRWV)
Friday: (before open) Endeavor Silver (EXK), 1st Dibs (DIBS), Globalstar (GSAT)
The week ahead is light on data, including Factory Orders on Monday, Tuesday's S&P Case-Shiller home price index for December, December Wholesale inventories, and February Consumer Confidence preceding President Trump's State of the Union address. Thursday has initial and continuing jobless claims and Friday closes out the week with the February Producer Price Index (PPI) before the bell.
Treasury Yield Curve Rates
| Date | 1 Mo | 1.5 mo | 2 Mo | 3 Mo | 4 Mo | 6 Mo | 1 Yr |
| 01/16/2026 | 3.75 | 3.72 | 3.68 | 3.67 | 3.66 | 3.60 | 3.55 |
| 01/23/2026 | 3.78 | 3.71 | 3.72 | 3.70 | 3.67 | 3.61 | 3.53 |
| 01/30/2026 | 3.72 | 3.73 | 3.75 | 3.67 | 3.69 | 3.61 | 3.48 |
| 02/06/2026 | 3.72 | 3.72 | 3.74 | 3.68 | 3.70 | 3.59 | 3.45 |
| 02/13/2026 | 3.72 | 3.71 | 3.73 | 3.68 | 3.70 | 3.59 | 3.42 |
| 02/20/2026 | 3.72 | 3.73 | 3.74 | 3.69 | 3.71 | 3.61 | 3.51 |
| Date | 2 Yr | 3 Yr | 5 Yr | 7 Yr | 10 Yr | 20 Yr | 30 Yr |
| 01/16/2026 | 3.59 | 3.67 | 3.82 | 4.02 | 4.24 | 4.79 | 4.83 |
| 01/23/2026 | 3.60 | 3.67 | 3.84 | 4.03 | 4.24 | 4.78 | 4.82 |
| 01/30/2026 | 3.52 | 3.60 | 3.79 | 4.01 | 4.26 | 4.82 | 4.87 |
| 02/06/2026 | 3.50 | 3.57 | 3.76 | 3.98 | 4.22 | 4.80 | 4.85 |
| 02/13/2026 | 3.40 | 3.43 | 3.61 | 3.81 | 4.04 | 4.64 | 4.69 |
| 02/20/2026 | 3.48 | 3.50 | 3.65 | 3.85 | 4.08 | 4.66 | 4.72 |
There was very little movement in fixed income, similar to the sluggishness demonstrated in equities. Almost not worth reporting, spreads were flat, with 2s-10s at +60 and full spectrum at +100. The biggest move was in 2-year notes, with yields up 8 basis points, though still well below recent levels. 1-month bills remained moored at 3.72% for the fourth week running.
Spreads:
2s-10s
2025
1/3: +32
1/10: +37
1/17: +34
1/24: +36
1/31: +36
2/7: +20
2/14: +21
2/21: +23
2/28: +25
3/7: +33
3/14: +29
3/21: +31
3/28: +38
4/4: +33
4/11: +52
4/17: +53
4/25: +55
5/2: +50
5/9: +49
5/16: +45
5/23: +51
5/30: +52
6/6: +48
6/13: +45
6/20: +48
6/27: +56
7/3: +47
7/11: +53
7/18: +56
7/25: +49
8/1: +54
8/8: +51
8/15: +58
8/22: +58
8/29: +64
9/5: +59
9/12: +50
9/19: +57
9/26: +57
10/3: +45
10/10: +53
10/17: +56
10/24: +54
10/31: +51
11/7: +56
11/14: +52
11/21: +55
11/28: +55
12/5: +58
12/12: +67
12/19: +68
12/26: +68
2026
1/2: +72
1/9: +64
1/16: +65
1/23: +64
1/30: +74
2/6: +72
2/13: +64
2/20: +60
Full Spectrum (30-days - 30-years)
2025
1/3: +38
1/10: +54
1/17: +41
1/24: +40
1/31: +36
2/7: +32
2/14: +32
2/21: +31
2/28: +13
3/7: +24
3/14: +25
3/21: +23
3/28: +26
4/4: +5
4/11: +38
4/17: +44
4/25: +40
5/2: +41
5/9: +46
5/16: +52
5/23: +68
5/30: +59
6/6: +69
6/13: +67
6/20: +69
6/27: +66
7/3: +51
7/11: +59
7/18: +65
7/25: +55
8/1: +32
8/8: +37
8/15: +44
8/22: +41
8/29: +51
9/5: +49
9/12: +40
9/19: +54
9/26: +55
10/3: +47
10/10: +43
10/17: +42
10/24: +48
10/31: +61
11/7: +69
11/14: +70
11/21: +68
11/28: +62
12/5: +97
12/12: +109
12/19: +111
12/26: +111
2026
1/2: +114
1/9: +112
1/16: +108
1/23: +104
1/30: +115
2/6: +113
2/13: +97
2/20: +100
Oil/Gas
WTI crude ended the week at $66.31, the largest weekly gain in eight months, from the close last week at $60.58. Tensions in the Middle East continue to drive speculation in crude, with the Strait of Hormuz a tipping point. While there's a contingent of traders who believe the strait would be shut down by Iran in the case of a U.S. attack, there's also an argument that closing off oil flows would not serve Iran well, given their major customer is China. It would be tantamount to shooting itself in the foot.
It is more likely that the conflict over Iran will last longer than U.S. and Israel desire, and that a focused assault could rapidly escalate into a regional or wider war, drawing in other Mideast nations and possibly China and Russia. Such a scenario remain an open possibility since Iran sees the current amassing of force off its coast as an existential threat, similar to Russia's view of the Ukraine situation. Should hostilities spread beyond Iran, the price of oil would almost certainly rise, regardless of whether the Strait of Hormus remained open or closed.
The markets prefer a short, quick resolution, though the reality is that nothing indicates a quick strike or resolution. There's a better chance that whatever occurs in the Middle East is going to rage on for months and possibly years as it serves the interests of both the U.S. and Israel to keep the world in chaos and continual conflict.
The U.S. national average for gas at the pump remained flat for the week, at $2.92 by Sunday.
California rose another five cents this week, to $4.60 per gallon, the highest in the nation and up 29 cents in just the past three weeks. Washington ($4.27) remained in the $4+ club for a second straight week, up a whopping 15 cents. Oregon ($3.81), was up 20 cents. After three weeks under $3.00, Arizona is above $3.00 for a third straight week, rising six cents to $3.22. The lowest prices remain in the Southeast, with Oklahoma well below any other state, at $2.30, followed by Arkansas ($2.40) and Louisiana ($2.41). Texas checks in at $2.43. The remaining Southeast states, from North Carolina ($2.70) west to New Mexico ($2.50), are all below $2.70, except Florida ($2.87).
In the Northeast, prices remained steady and consistently close to recent lows. Only Pennsylvania ($3.14) was above $3.00. New York held steady at $2.98, along with Vermont ($3.00).
In the midwest region, Illinois remained the highest, though down eight cents at $2.92, with Michigan next, at $2.83. Kansas was the lowest ($2.45), followed by North Dakota ($2.46).
Sub-$3.00 gas was the norm in 40 of the lower 48 states, one fewer than last week, leaving only California, Washington, Nevada, Oregon, Illinois, Arizona, Vermont, and Pennsylvania, at $3.00 or above.
Bitcoin
This week: $67,651.35
Last week: $68,948.18
2 weeks ago: $71,145.72
6 months ago: $115,468.40
One year ago: $96,443.38
Five years ago: $46,158.54
Bitcoin couldn't even get as high as $68,700 this week. It's painfully obvious that the bloom is off this particular rose. ETF flows have been negative for weeks and the Ponzi seems to be collapsing upon itself. Almost nobody uses crypto as a means of exchange and as a store of value, it's a complete flop. There is almost no use case for cyrpto other than a slush fund for nefarious activity.
Bitcoin miners are turning their expansive networks of servers toward AI, closing out their chase for bitcoin rewards, which don't even cover the cost of electricity and hardware. Say goodbye to this obvious fraud within 18 months, if that long.
Precious Metals
Gold:Silver Ratio: 60.66; last week: 65.32
Futures, per COMEX continuous contracts:
Gold price 1/23: $4,983.10
Gold price 1/30: $4,907.50
Gold price 2/6: $4,988.60
Gold price 2/13: $5,063.80
Gold price 2/20: $5,108.34
Silver price 1/23: $103.26
Silver price 1/30: $85.25
Silver price 2/6: $77.53
Silver price 2/13: $77.27
Silver price 2/20: $84.57
SPOT:
(stockcharts.com)
Gold 1/23: $4,989.23
Gold 1/30: $4,886.71
Gold 2/6: $4,964.07
Gold 2/13: $5,041.72
Gold 2/20: $5,130.00
Silver 1/23: $102.95
Silver 1/30: $84.63
Silver 2/6: $77.98
Silver 2/13: $77.19
Silver 2/20: $84.57
Surprisingly, the COMEX/LBMA price suppression cartel didn't take Lunar New Year as an opportunity to crash metals prices while Chinese markets were closed. In fact, the opposite occurred, with both metals rising, especially sharply on Friday, the last open trading day before markets in the East open at 6:00 pm ET Sunday evening.
Anybody hoping to buy the dip got outflanked by bullish trends prevailing. Friday's move higher might have been related to the situation in the Middle East, though it's difficult to tell. Volatility is likely to be maintained, but, for all intents and purposes, direction in gold and silver prices seems to have returned to a positive stance.
Here are the most recent prices for common one ounce gold and silver items sold on eBay (free shipping included, numismatics excluded):
| Item/Price | Low | High | Average | Median |
| 1 oz silver coin: | 88.51 | 100.00 | 94.27 | 94.00 |
| 1 oz silver bar: | 88.00 | 107.50 | 97.82 | 98.59 |
| 1 oz gold coin: | 5,322.92 | 5,627.34 | 5,467.43 | 5,462.11 |
| 1 oz gold bar: | 5,315.58 | 5,514.23 | 5,389.86 | 5,384.80 |
The Single Ounce Silver Market Price Benchmark (SOSMPB) rose marginally, to $96.17, a gain of 93 cents from the February 15 price of $95.24 per troy ounce. Premiums remain elevated.
The weekly eBay price survey revealed that retail dealers and casual buyers and sellers have adjusting to severe premiums, which remain in a range of 20-25% for small denominations.
WEEKEND WRAP
Tariffs, trade, the flow of oil, military conflict, AI encroachment, probably nothing...
At the Close, Friday, February 20, 2026:
Dow: 49,625.97, +230.81 (+0.47%)
NASDAQ: 22,886.07, +203.34 (+0.90%)
S&P 500: 6,909.51, +47.62 (+0.69%)
NYSE Composite: 23,452.60, +94.32 (+0.40%)
For the Week:
Dow: +125.04 (+0.25%)
NASDAQ: +339.40 (+1.51%)
S&P 500: +73.34 (+1.07%)
NYSE Composite: +126.51 (+0.54%)
Dow Transports: +497.86 (+2.57%)
Disclaimer: Information disseminated on this site should not be construed as investment advice. Downtown Magazine Inc., Money Daily and it's owners, affiliates and/or employees are not investment advisors and do not offer specific investment advice. All investments have risk. You should consult a professional investment advisor or stock broker or use your individual judgement when making investment decisions. By viewing this site, you hold harmless Downtown Magazine Inc., Money Daily, its owners, affiliates and employees against any and all liability. Copyright 2026, Downtown Magazine Inc., all rights reserved.
Despite being a short week and indices remaining near all-time highs, markets have shown quite a bit of intraday volatility.
Through Thursday's close, the Dow is down 103 points, the NASDAQ is up 136 points, and the S&P is up 25 points. The NASDAQ looks to break a string of five straight losing weeks. It has had only one week on the positive side, that being the first full week of 2026, January 5-9.
The big number for today is the delayed release of the initial estimate for 4th quarter, 2025 GDP. The BEA released the figure at 8:30 am ET, showing real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 1.4 percent in October, November and December.
Putting together the four quarters of 2025 - (0.6%), 3.8%, 4.4%, 1.4% - and dividing by four, reveals that real GDP for 2025 was a substandard 2.25%.
Compared to 2024: 0.8% 3.6% 3.3% 1.9% = 2.40%
and 2023: 2.9% 2.5% 4.7% 3.4% = 3.375%
... the U.S. is running in reverse.
The government and the usual suspect mainstream expert economists will attribute the poor showing to the government shutdown, which is pure nonsense. The federal government may have halted some procurement in October and early November, but they almost certainly spent that money as quickly as possible, in late November and December. The truer picture would likely be found in the lack of holiday spending. Tapped out consumers weren't buying Christmas presents as much as they were paying inflated prices for food, rent, insurance, and taxes.
Wall Street apparently feels the same way. Stock futures took a bit of a dive on the GDP release. If there's any one group that has a feel for the pulse of commerce in America, it's the stock and bond traders of lower Manhattan, and they don't like what they're seeing.
Additionally, according to the BEA, "the price index for gross domestic purchases increased 2.6 percent in 2025, compared with an increase of 2.4 percent in 2024. The PCE price index increased 2.6 percent, the same increase as in 2024. Excluding food and energy prices, the PCE price index increased 2.8 percent, compared with an increase of 2.9 percent."
Those numbers aren't particularly indicative of stable prices. The PCE index and the CPI have been kept artificially lower over the past six months by declining oil and gas prices. With the overwhelming consensus suspecting the Trump administration - with assistance and urging by Israel - to initiate military action against Iran possibly this weekend, traders are more than a little bit spooked about the direction of the economy and global geo-politics. The continuing saga of the Epstein affairs add yet another layer of insecurity to the general malaise.
It's more than just your run-of-the-mill mess. The U.S. is weak and threatening to kick off a military excursion that almost certainly will lead to a larger conflict, if not regional, possibly global.
At the Close, Thursday, February 19, 2026:
Dow: 49,395.16, -267.50 (-0.54%)
NASDAQ: 22,682.73, -70.91 (-0.31%)
S&P 500: 6,861.89, -19.42 (-0.28%)
NYSE Composite: 23,358.27, -29.22 (-0.12%)
Wednesday was another one of those magical melt-up days on Wall Street that everybody has become so very used to witnessing, it's almost a crying shame if stocks don't go up for any particular reason. All indices started the session in the red, quickly popped to the positive and managed to hold onto about half of the session's gains.
These simplistic algorithmic gains don't hide the facts of a stumbling U.S. economy based mostly on shoddy, continually-revised--lower government data, like Non-farm Payrolls, CPI and GDP, the latter of which we'll get an advance look at tomorrow morning.
For today, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis announced that the U.S. trade balance (goods and services deficit) was $70.3 billion in December, up $17.3 billion from $53.0 billion in November, revised. The U.S. continues to insist on importing more than it exports. This is not surprising at all, even despite Trump's tariffs. For 2025, the goods and services deficit decreased $2.1 billion, or 0.2 percent, from 2024. Yep, those tariffs have made a huge impact.
Americans have been running trade deficits for the past 30 years, with no end in sight. Tariffs only make imports more expensive. USA-USA-USA! Hell, yeah!
Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing rose to 16.3 in February, up from 12.6 a month ago.
Initial Jobless Claims came in at 209,000, down sharply from last week's estimate of 229K, and close to the lowest in five years. Despite AI causing significant workforce reductions, the number is not at all surprising, given that there are fewer U.S. jobs to being with, ergo, fewer people to let go.
After the close on Wednesday, a few more companies reported 4th quarter results.
eBay (EBAY) - strong quarter, stock up 6% pre-market
Doordash (DASH) - missed estimates, shares up 9% (go fig
ure)
Kinross (KGC) - strong beat, top and bottom, stock flat (go figure
again!)
Carvana (CVNA) - unimpressive 4Q, clouded guidance, stock down 7%
Thursday, before the bell, more reports:
First Magestic (AG) - earnings, revenue beat, dividend boost, up 3%
John Deere (DE) - solid guidance, shares up 6%
Walmart (WMT) - stable earnings, cautious guidance; stock up 1.5%
Wayfair (W) - sales pop, narrows loss, up 12%
Yeti (YETI) - earnings in line, tariff issues send stock down 7%
Stock futures are sliding on fears of U.S. attack on Iron over weekend; oil futures up for same reason. Gold continues to test $5,000. Silver advanced overnight to as high as $78.60.
General conditions are still quite shaky
At the Close, Wednesday, February 18, 2026:
Dow: 49,662.66, +129.47 (+0.26%)
NASDAQ: 22,753.63, +175.25 (+0.78%)
S&P 500: 6,881.31, +38.09 (+0.56%)
NYSE Composite: 23,387.49, +86.71 (+0.37%)
AI adoption is already taking its toll in a variety of areas, the latest casualty being the gig economy freelance marketplace, fiverr, a site at which companies and/or individuals can hire out talent for a wide variety of tasks, from mowing lawns to babysitting to website development, graphics, and coding.
The company (FVRR) released its latest quarterly earnings report Wednesday morning. While able to surpass analyst estimates, the company issued a discouraging forecast, citing AI as one of the main causes for caution moving forward.
Micha Kaufman, the company’s founder and CEO, emphasized that the company is experiencing a major shift in AI adoption, with the marketplace evolving to make human talent more essential.
The above quote, taken from this Benzinga article which outlines the company's financial condition, doesn't make a load of sense. CEO Kaufman recognizes the shift toward AI, but in the same breath offers the opinion that his company will focus on making "human talent more essential," which is the exact opposite of what AI does. It degrades human talent. In some cases - and these will grow as AI becomes more robust - AI eliminates human interaction altogether.
Now, if all you need is somebody to do window washing or lawn care, fiverr is probably a good place to look. But, if you're a business manager seeking to expand opportunities, increase market share, create content, do sales analysis, or any of the hundreds of business activities that constitute day-to-day operations, AI can do them at a fracton of the cost of what these freelancers on fiverr are charging, many of them already pitching AI tools and integration themselves.
Taken through a lens that filters out the burgeoning impact of AI, Fiverr's metrics weren't all that bad.
Fiverr reported adjusted earnings per share of 86 cents, beating the analyst consensus estimate of 72 cents. Normally, that would be positive. However, given the current climate, with the view that AI is going to eliminate much of the business need for human interaction, it's a bummer.
Shares are down some 22-24% in pre-market trading. What's worse is that the compnay's stock is down some 97% from where it was five years ago. Pre-market quote for FVRR is $10.33, down from an all-time high of $323 in February, 2021. Ouch!
That's where the rubber meets the road. Most savvy business managers want to keep costs down, while having the ability to delegate tasks and keep the managers time open to pursue more important activities, like smoozing with upper management, playing golf, or actually improving the business. Such a manager might hire a fiverr freelancer for a specific task, and, if professionally performed, might keep the freelancer on call for other jobs. Meanwhile, this manager is firing all of his full-time employees as he finds free-lance replacements.
On an tangetial level, Ai is going to wreak havoc on accounting, reporting, and employment firms, especially ones like Paychex (PAYX) which handles all the government filings and payroll for many small and medium-sized companies. Another area of impact will be in HR departments. With the need for personnal management degraded, there will eventually be no need to have much more than a single person overseeing the human workforce. The days of nagging HR compliance overseers are soon to meet their just reward: the unemployment line.
The fivrr experience is far from an isolated case. AI is going to rupture corporate myths and the need for human labor. AI, and the emergence of robotics in the workplace will make human interaction almost an afterthought. This ongoing, dramtic change in the business landscape is certain to have long-lasting effects. The companies which embrace AI and robotics at the fastest pace are most likely to aviod becoming irrelevant, but many will fall by the wayside simply by not keeping up with rapidchanges in corporate structure. Forget the horrors of DEI. The blue-haired tattooed lowlife demanding a living wage will become a forgotten relic from an era of massive stupidity.
Wise investors will be looking to firms which adopt AI in crafty ways and send their legacy employees - at least at entry level for now - packing.
At the close, Tuesday, February 17, 2026:
Dow: 49,533.19, +32.26 (+0.07%)
NASDAQ: 22,578.38, +31.71 (+0.14%)
S&P 500: 6,843.22, +7.05 (+0.10%)
NYSE Composite: 23,300.78, -25.31 (-0.11%)
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