3 Surprising Facts About The 2026 Housing Market

DANO WEIR: The rain has stopped in Northern California, but that doesn't mean there's not a storm brewing or already raging, perhaps around the world. My name is Dan O'Weir. Welcome to On The Markets from Fermata Advisors, our private wealth brand, Sonoma Wealth, and our other Fermata family of brands.

DANO WEIR: This week, we are looking at three surprising facts about the 2026 housing market, one of which I absolutely did not believe. Chris has that slide for us. I'm excited to share that with you. Also, the United States is the richest stock market in the world? Yes, it is. And the insane multiples that United States citizens have in stock holdings versus major world powers like China, Russia, and Japan will surprise you.

DANO WEIR: The good thing about the good thing that the stocks are high because you don't want to see the chart we have on the dollars global reserve currency status and with everything going on In the world, global foreign policy, we'll call it, the honey badger market just keeps on chugging with another all-time high. Let's hit it.

SPEAKER 2: The stock market, the economy, your money. What's the latest and what could be next? Find out now with Fermata On The Markets. Straightforward financial market updates. For the brands of Fermata Advisors, Sonoma Wealth Advisors, Fermata 401k and Fermata Tax. On The Markets starts now.

DANO WEIR: So let's bring them in here. They are your managing principals of Sonoma Wealth Advisors. If you're a client of ours, you perhaps know them. Or if you're a prospective client, let's please get to know them. Daren Blonski, Chris Sipes, CFP, other letters and licenses after their name. But Daren, I'm going to ask you first, why am I looking at a Trader Joe's bag on the screen?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: You know, Dan, I don't know. But it's kind of interesting because apparently these $3 tote bags, I think I've thrown away about like five of them, right? They're like, you buy them because you need them and you throw them in the back of your car and you forget to use them and you buy another. And anyway, so they're apparently going for $50,000 Overseas.

DANO WEIR: And there was a similar kind of run up with Starbucks and that little bear cup they had or whatever. It looked like a jar of honey, but it was actually a bear Frappuccino something, something. So it's interesting to see the collector's market for some of these things.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yeah, I mean.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Are you saying a Trader Joe's bag should be a part of a well-diversified portfolio? I mean, maybe.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Maybe.

DANO WEIR: I mean, now that we're thinking about it, you know, what's the, where's the chart on that, Daren?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: I don't know, but I'm thinking I need to get one this weekend just to wear it around so I can be a fashion icon.

DANO WEIR: I have a theory. You mentioned you wanted to talk about this. I'm going to put this out there because if you don't know, I'm the marketing director for the firm. So I always look at things through a marketing lens. When things are, quote, going for a certain price and you can put that in a headline.

DANO WEIR: I always wonder if that's just like a little viral marketing campaign and the person who put that up there at that price is also the company you hired to promote said product. You know, I mean, what are the what are the rules and stipulations around, you know, buying and selling things on EBay, you know, to say that, oh, they're going for this price. I better go get one.

DANO WEIR: You know, the Stanley Cups a couple of years ago were exactly the same thing. I just Not as much. I will just working in financial services. I've learned the level of rigor that we are held to when it comes to communication is not the same in any other industry. It's pretty interesting to see what other industries can get away with.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: You know, what's mind boggling for me, though? And then you open the can of worms. I think financial advisors literally have to...

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Scrutinize the things we say and how we say it thousands of times more than even doctors and when you think about it they have someone's life in their hands but if you think about like modern western medicine you know these pharmaceutical companies are going and selling their pharmaceuticals at western doctors all day long and then they pass them off to you know the person who comes to see them for their whatever's going on with them from a health and there's very little regulation, right?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: I mean, there's some, but I mean, these doctors and pharmaceutical reps come in, they pay lots of money to talk to the doctors. I mean, it's just a big sales scheme. But then when we're doing our business, like the way we have to scrutinize everything we say, nothing's wrong. I think it's probably better. It's just, it's shocking to me. Yeah, it was.

DANO WEIR: It was to me too. And once I learned it, I went, wait, why isn't everybody else held to the standard? But anyways, something to consider when you see those high prices for products going on EBay.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Just for the record, before we move on really quick, I went on EBay just to see what a Trader Joe's tote bag on EBay.

DANO WEIR: Show it, show it, show it.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So like in case anyone's worried that they're going to have to buy a Trader Joe's tote bag.

DANO WEIR: Thousand dollars i mean look at you could get five of them for 80 in the United States but look at it's kind of interesting ktla ktla i got a bone to pick with you now i'm not sure about that headline bro because looks like maybe a little cheaper maybe it's just all about i you know yeah yeah yeah all right we digress yes Chris you've been reading this great book investing in U. S.

DANO WEIR: History, the stock market over the years in the United States. And you've got another banger here, a great quote that you found in this week's chapter.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yeah, this one's from John Kenneth Galbraith. And he says, there can be few fields of human endeavor in which history counts for so little as the world of finance. Past experience to the extent that is part of a memory at all is dismissed as the primitive refuge of those who do not have the insight. To appreciate the incredible wonders of the present.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And it's really amazing to read through the history and see things that are happening today that have happened many times in the past. It is true that we all kind of feel like this is the very first time this has ever happened, which is not true. For most things, it's happened before. People have gone through similar situations. Had similar reactions. It's really kind of wild how we have these rhythms.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: But to me, it's easier to learn from those lessons when you're removed from the situation emotionally, right? Like instead of, you know, a certain asset class that's hot today, they're talking about, you know, something that was, that was hot then, right? Like radio stocks, you know? So, So it's easier to take the lessons when you're not as wrapped up in it with present investment in it emotionally.

DANO WEIR: Past performance is not indicative of future results.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: That's right. Now, one of the things that's become very clear through that history, too, is one of the things that makes America different is our... Appetite for risk-taking. And I think you see this through much of our history.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And this is from visual capitalists showing stock market participation rate, meaning the percentage of the population that takes part in the stock market. And I think we almost take it for granted that most people invest in stocks, which if you look across the world, that's not true, at least not to the extent that we do here in the United States.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Roughly a little over half of our population is a shareholder either through direct ownership or their pension or their retirement plans. And that's a pretty high rate. The second highest rate being Canada at about 50%, but then it drops off to the 30s for most of the other countries on this list here.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: It's interesting that that lack of memory has really, I guess, served us in some ways because people go through traumatic experiences like the depression, let's say, and rather than never going back into stocks again, people forget and start to take the risk all over again.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Stock prices built up again in the 60s, and then we went through a horrible decade in the 70s. People just kind of forgot about it and got back in, you know? So I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing, especially from the U. S.'s standpoint in terms of overall risk-taking. It's definitely seemed to benefit us from our entrepreneurial spirit and overall risk-taking in the U. S.

DANO WEIR: A phrase I think is always great to consider when you hear someone say, we've never seen this happen before. Just ask yourself. No one alive has ever seen this happen before. You know, it's very possible that this has happened before. You just weren't there.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: That's right. That's right. All right. We'll look at the sentiment indicators from AAII this week. Now, as a reminder, this is a fund manager survey, and they basically just ask, are you bullish, bearish, or neutral? So it's not a measurement of positioning or anything like that. It's solely, how do you feel about the markets?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And we've been in this mid-40s range, low to mid-40s range for for a while here are, are The bullish high was in October at 45%, and the bearish high was back in April with the tariff freakout at the beginning of April, which seems like, I don't know, decades ago at this point.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: But that is the bearish high and also happens to be kind of a short-term low in the markets at the time, which is the main reason why we look at these to look for extremes in sentiment. Both on the upside and on the downside. Now, if we look at the CNN fear and greed index, we're at neutral versus 44, which was just slightly in the fear zone last week.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: That particular index is a measurement of seven different positioning indicators. So that is more objective, I guess you could say, in terms of how is the market actually positioned. And then we've got the Bitcoin fear and greed index. Really at the same area, around 27 fear, which was unchanged from 28 last week.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Now, again, if you ask people how they feel about the markets, I feel like that's a little different than how they're actually positioned. This from Goldman Sachs showing that U. S. Investors' equity allocation is the highest on record. And you can see in the dark blue there, the equity allocation by US investors.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And then you've got equity weight in the world portfolio, meaning that if it was just in line with the overall global equity allocation, like if you add up all the assets in the world, how much of that would be equity related. And so Americans definitely have a tilt to. To us equities at this point. And it is the highest, on record do with, do what you will with that information.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: The, some of the, some of the news, I feel like this week was a fire hose of news. I, I will talk a little bit later about the Venezuela thing, that happened over the weekend that kind of kicked off the week. And notice all these things always happen on Fridays after the market closed. So guys, I'm a little gripped right now, just worried slash anticipating what's going to happen this afternoon.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: That's crazy because that was exactly what I thought. I was like, oh, it's Friday. Market's closed. Now what?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You wonder where, can you.

DANO WEIR: Can you detail exactly what you're saying there? I know what you're saying there, but can you, you're saying that perhaps this was timed. You're talking about the, the Venezuela, Venezuela.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: I don't know, but it's not.

DANO WEIR: I mean, it's very interesting that it happens on a Friday after the market closes so that the market couldn't react negatively to it.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yeah. I think, I think that's, I mean, any type of, major news. I would assume that is the goal is that it's done Friday after markets close. That way the market has an entire weekend to digest the information.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Although this week, the market started out much higher on Monday, so it seemed to be positive on the news. I don't know.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: But I think anytime there's going to be unexpected market moves, potentially market moving news. They want to drop it on Fridays after the market closes.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So getting back to one of the pieces of news this week was President Trump tweeting, or I guess, truthing, I don't know what you call it when you put something on True Social, but that they were going to ban institutional investors from the housing market. Now, institutional would mean you know, like a professional, investment style company.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So think a fund, think a, a group of investors all over the country that invest, via a fund into, into real estate. Now, I know a lot of people cheer that thinking, yes, we should get investment, you know, institutional investors out of single family homes, given that we have such a disaster in the single family home space.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: However, I, I think it's a little more, of a. Sounds good move, then it's actually going to impact the markets very much given that institutional landlords only account for about 1% of the overall market. And I think that's because if you think about most single family homes, they're very intensive in terms of management.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: The clients that I know that have rental properties, There's a lot that goes into it. It's very difficult for a large institutional investor to manage single-family homes and do so on an efficient money-making basis. So institutional landlords only make up about 1%. The vast majority. One second, Trace.

DANO WEIR: Because I just want to, I just want to note, this is one of our surprising facts this week in the episode. We said we had three, which is the news is Trump administration saying no more.

DANO WEIR: Institutional owners landlords for single-family homes but the surprising fact is it's only one percent it feels like it's this globo takeover of the housing market when you've talked to real estate people it's like institutional investors they're they're the darth vader and.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: It's like you know what it's only one percent so that's surprising fact number one yeah yeah and it's it's sort of comical in a way because a lot of people said yeah finally the They're sticking it to BlackRock, which they meant Blackstone. Most people don't know that there is a Blackstone and a BlackRock.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: BlackRock is an investment company that issues shares and exchange-traded funds and mutual funds and stuff. Blackstone is a private equity type of investment firm that does the investing into real estate. Which Blackstone stock did get crushed on the news. I believe it was down eight, 9% somewhere in that range.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: But BlackRock is not an owner of single family homes that I'm aware of. So the names get confused a lot because they sound so similar. So funny side fact, I guess. So where do most of the single family residents ownerships reside? Well, it's the quote unquote mom and pop.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: It's the investors that have less than 10 homes. Here, mom and pop is considered one to nine homes. And this is via John Burns Research And Consulting. They put out a lot of really good real estate related facts and data if you're interested in looking into it. So roughly 76.8%. Percent.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Of the single family homes in the United States are owned by people that own one to nine homes. So that the mom and pops, the professional investors would be considered those between 10 and 99 homes. So that's still not institutional level. Like that's not a, you know, a Blackstone per se.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So really the, the segment that is over a thousand homes, that's really where you would want to... To single in on. So, so a lot of, a lot of the single family residences, are, are, are owned by, you know, individual investors.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And a lot of people have done really well on them over a long period of time, you know, in terms of the, the overall investment, portfolios. So now, the other surprising factor, I don't know if this is one of the facts that you had in mind, Dan, but... There was another announcement from President Trump that they were going to be investing in the bonds of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are known as the GSEs.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Essentially, they're quasi-government agencies because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are meant to hold mortgage loans. In their portfolios and they are not explicitly backed by the government, but implicitly get backed by the government.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And I know that's a kind of a weird, you know, nuance there. However, in the investment world, they're considered to be extremely safe, not quite as safe as treasuries because of the implicit backing of the government, but But they are considered to be very safe.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So in the great financial crisis, the government came in and bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And so President Trump says, I am in. Instructing my representatives to buy $200 billion in mortgage bonds. This will drive mortgage rates down, monthly payments down, and make the cost of owning a home more affordable.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Would definitely agree with parts of that. I just want to read the commentary here, and this is from Parker. I'm sorry, I'm blanking on this first name. I'll get it in a second, but he says secondary mortgage spreads. And let me just explain what mortgage spreads are.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: When you look at treasuries, which are issued by the U. S. Government, those are considered to be credit risk free. The government is going to pay those. The government has excellent credit despite their finances. And so like we were just talking about, those are considered the safest.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: They consider considered to have the lowest rates in the fixed income world. So when you go up the risk ladder just a little bit into mortgages, where again, you're taking on a few risks like prepayment risk, interest rate risk, et cetera, but also that implicit backing of the government, investors want a little bit more return in order to take on that extra risk that they would be taking over and above treasury.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So that's what they call the spread. There's been a wider spread than normal between treasuries and mortgage rates over the last few years since the Fed started raising interest rates.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Those dropped off a cliff today, that spread, on this news of the buying of mortgage bonds. Let me get back to what Mr. Parker was saying here. Secondary mortgage spreads are down a massive 20 bips on the week. The most With most of that move happening this morning, what's happening?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: The mortgage market is undergoing structural repricing following the directive for Fannie And Freddie to deploy $200 billion into MBS. The $200 billion figure is massive relative to the GSE capital. For context, Fannie And Freddie have a combined accumulative net worth of about $173 billion as of late 2025.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: By directing a $200 billion buildup, the administration is effectively deploying the entire T of the capital cushion built up over the last six years to support the secondary market. By acting as a price-insensitive buyer, which means they don't care about really anything, they're just going to buy these bonds, the GSEs will be bypassing the Fed and targeting mortgage spreads directly.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: If the spread stays compressed, mortgage rates can fall even if the 10-year treasury yields remain elevated. And that's a big point right there because most people expect the 10-year rates to stay elevated given the finances of the U. S. Government. So if they can get the rates down by compressing that spread, that seems to be the goal of buying these bonds.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So, mr Parker goes on to say Parker ross is his name Parker ross yes he says in a market still defined by severe inventory constraints meaning there's just not that many houses for sale there's not there's not much supply lower mortgage rates risk being immediately passed through into higher home prices we may see a faster treadmill effect where monthly payment savings are offset by another leg of home price appreciation.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: I think what he's saying there is prices are affected by supply and demand. If you're not increasing the supply, but you're increasing the demand by making... It's just going to be COVID all over again. I don't know what it'll be for sure, of course, but you could see this increase in demand given that the mortgage rates come down. Without a corresponding increase in supply that could drive up the prices of houses.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So yes, the rates could come down. Yes, that would be a good thing for current homeowners and or people that got their mortgages over the last couple of years. And in theory, it would be a good thing for those people going into the market today in the short run. However, if you get a lot more demand, no more supply, you're going to get higher prices.

DANO WEIR: And just to clarify, that was our surprising fact number two, which is that Trump has announced he's putting the $200 billion into mortgage-backed securities.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Great. And there's no prize for keeping track of the surprising facts, right? You know, I feel like it's one of those games where you're trying to keep track of things and they give you a prize at the end.

DANO WEIR: Sometimes the episode has a title and it's like, well, wait, did you even answer the question or did you just have a title? So I'm trying to stick to it.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: There you go. I appreciate that. So what we're looking at here is housing starts. So this would be essentially new homes in the pipeline. Through housing starts. And this goes all the way back to the sixties. And you can see that it's been very cyclical over the years. With the 2008 crisis, obviously being, you know, the largest housing crisis in U S history.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And you can see that big drop off. So we just essentially quit building. And, that came back for a while until, you know early 21 22 when the Fed raised rates so high and now The economics of selling new homes is really tough. And we've seen through other charts that we don't have this week, but the supply of new homes is actually pretty high. The new home supply has been pretty high.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: However, the home builders have not been able to unload that supply at the prices that they need to unload them at to make money because there's just not buyers at that rate. They would have to lower their price in order to fill that market. But if you look at this housing starts, which we just got the updated data this morning for the last month, and we're really, we're still, we're kind of in a downtrend.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: The market is just not responding to more supply at this point because the incentives just aren't there. The incentives, the economics just don't make sense at this point. So that market is going to... Likely need more correction to go through it in order to make economic sense and you start to see more housing starts coming down the pipe.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Now, if you look at delinquency rates on multifamily, so think apartment complexes down to, I guess, duplexes, but I think this is primarily looking at apartment complexes. And, delinquency meaning that they're behind on their payments and the delinquency rate is, is very high, relative to history. You can see it's actually higher than it was during the great financial crisis.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Which is really interesting. We have very low single family home borrower delinquencies. Most people own their homes, something like 40% of us homeowners own their home free and clear. And the other 60% that still owe on their properties, many people have a lot of equity built up and their payments are pretty low, et cetera. So the delinquency rates on single family homes is very low. However, multifamily is very high.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And these things happen over time. I remember, gosh, it would have probably been 2014, 2013, somewhere in there. Cap rates on commercial real estate, sub 3%, meaning that's essentially like the cash return on real estate at that time was very, very low.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And we all know that returns are made when you buy something, not necessarily when you sell it. And the price is a big factor there. And investors were just willing to... Accept these extremely low return rates, I guess, based on the fact that they might get higher rents down the road, or they were just hoping that the prices would appreciate.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And neither one of those things really happened. And then the commercial real estate market has just been hit super hard. And this is probably going to continue as long as interest rates stay high because rates in these segments of the market get reset anywhere from three years, five years, 10 years.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: They're not like traditional 30-year fixed mortgages where you keep the same rate and payment forever. Most commercial loans are rewritten on a regular basis. So a lot of those payments are going up as interest rates have gone up and it's been really detrimental to the multifamily space.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Okay. So interesting slide here. It looks like I got these out of... Out of order. So apologies there, but this is from Kevin Gordon at Schwab U S imports. Yes, this is, this was, also meant for this to be closer to the single family, housing stock owned by institutional investors. So apologies missed, missed that.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: But, when you look at the, the institutional investors, so going back to the 1% roughly that own the single family housing stock. Even more concentrated than it looks because it's very concentrated in certain areas. When you look at Central Ohio, the Atlanta area, parts of Florida, parts of Arizona and Texas, that's the vast majority of the institutional ownership is concentrated in those areas.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: So again, banning it or changing it, not as likely to have as big of an impact. Incidentally, most of those places, at least when I'm looking at Mississippi, Atlanta, Central Ohio, and Florida, a lot of those places were the only ones left that still had cash flow returns. Investors in California know you can't buy a single family home and hope to cash flow that if you're going to get a mortgage.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: It's just not going to happen unless you find some sort of unicorn situation. But in parts of these parts of the country, that's where the institutional investors were attracted to was where you could actually make a profit, a cash flow profit on the property from renting it out. They weren't really as necessarily banking on price appreciation. It was more of an ongoing cash flow return.

DANO WEIR: And I will share that I spoke with a realtor from Napa. Who also had done business in Tennessee. And we were talking to him about institutional buyers. And I said, hey, you know, like, I feel like we don't really see him around here. And he said, in his opinion, one of the reasons why is, you know, in areas of the South, you just have the same house on the same street and there's 200 of them.

DANO WEIR: And so from an institutional perspective, that's really easy to scale versus. I can just tell you doing business in Petaluma is different than doing business in Sebastopol, you know? And so one of the reasons why I'm not saying good or bad, but when you think about how angry sometimes people get about how unique and quirky parts of California can be, it can work for you in other ways that you're maybe not thinking about.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yeah. Great point. So this chart, I was hoping we could pair this with Darren's candles with oil. Like I said, to start the show going, rewinding all the way back to last weekend, which seems like a long time in the news cycle. You know, a big part of the, I guess markets reaction to the, to the Venezuelan thing is the, the proven oil reserves there.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And this from, Lizanne Saunders, at Schwab, she says almost no rigs, that's drilling rigs are. Operational in Venezuela as it's been nearly impossible to bring on additional capacity given Venezuela's infrastructure issues. If you can't get product to market, it doesn't really matter if you have it.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: There is simply no way of reliably getting it to market. So it's interesting. It looks like the oil production there, even despite the reserves, is just on the map. Because of the infrastructure to kind of get it out of there. So maybe that's what the market is reacting to is it kind of can't get any worse than it already is.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And if it improves at all, so much of the financial markets are not, is it good or bad, but is it relatively better or worse? And who knows, that might be some of the cause of the reaction in the market this week.

DANO WEIR: Did you want to go back to that? Import slide real quick?

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Yeah, you know, this was another interesting one from Kevin Gordon at Schwab. And this is the imports, the balance of imports. And so, you know, a red downward draft in this chart would show fewer imports. And his commentary there is US imports are now down 21.1% from their peak.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Only other times we've seen worse declines were during the pandemic and the global financial crisis. So another kind of one of those head scratchers where you would think that a big drop off in imports would have more impact On The Markets than it has. More impact on potential inflation, at least in the short run.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: You know, more impact on consumption, et cetera, et cetera. And it doesn't seem like the market cares at this point. And so we'll see if that continues or not, but just one of the other, one of the many indicators that just don't seem to, to apply to this, this current market.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: That's all I have for this week in terms of slides.

DANO WEIR: Darren Blonsky, paging Darren Blonsky, your flight is getting ready to depart.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: I'm here. I'm just on mute.

DANO WEIR: I want those. I want those candles. Give me the candlesticks.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Well, we're going to start off with a different kind of candlestick first. Okay.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: But today we would start off first with Polymarket.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So what is Polymarket? Polymarket, sometimes during the election. We use Polymarket to kind of figure out who we think might be the winner because the polls that are manufactured by the media generally are not so accurate. And the Polymarket is like the stock market, just in real time, to new information, new data, etc.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So one of the things that I wanted to look at amidst all the stuff going on from a... Geopolitical globally standpoint. I think one of the most important pieces of news next week is going to be this thing right here. Supreme Court rules in favor of Trump tariffs, and currently we're at 25 cents on the dollar.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Yes, which means that 75 cents on the dollar is a no. So the way the Polymarket is indicating right now, next week I think they're going to come out and say, hey, all that money you took in on tariffs earlier last year, it's got to go back, which would just create a flood of lawsuits.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And wow, what an economic storm it would create for the United States because all that money that Trump's been bragging about that he brought in, well, potentially might end up headed back. So watch this headline next week because I think could be a big market mover depending on what happens there. Which is interesting then when we look at the charts, because when we look at the S&P 500.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Real quick on that, Darren. Given that the betting markets and the markets in general, I think, are assuming that the Supreme Court is going to strike it down, that's what's priced in. So that would, in my opinion, not be a market mover if the Supreme Court struck them down.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: What would be a market mover is if they upheld them. Because that's not what the expectation is at this point. So it's important people understand the pricing, how the market prices in known information.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And there's been a lot of, I don't know if it's funny business or even if it's legal. I don't use the betting markets. I don't understand exactly what the regulations are.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: But from my understanding, there's a lot of bets that come through on insider information, quote unquote, ahead of time, which may be legal in the betting markets. I don't know. It's definitely illegal in the investment world. But the betting markets seem to kind of get that information ahead of time. So that's priced in.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: That would probably be the debate, right? Like, is it priced in? And at least this is the expectation, so we can assume that the market is efficient in pricing in that. Supreme Court's going to tell Trump he's got to give it all back. But we don't know. And so I guess let me rephrase, watch this headline next week because I think it's going to create volatility either way.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: But we will see where it goes. The fact that we closed out an all-time new high today is, and so this is the weekly chart, you look at the S&P 500, certainly the market thinks it's okay. So if this is true. And it is priced in, like you're saying, Chris, and market closes at an all-time high. Maybe the market doesn't care.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: I don't know. It's tough to say. But a nice week in the market for the S&P 500. We're moving right up along, continuing on this.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Above that 20-week moving average here. We've been staying there pretty solidly. Market looks pretty strong right now. I don't think you could argue that that market is going to head down unless there's some surprising event. It's funny, as soon as 1 o'clock hits, I'm scanning the headline to say, okay, what bomb's getting dropped? What are we doing? Market's closed. Here comes the latest move.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And Chris, you'll be happy to hear that I haven't seen anything yet. So we're doing all right. Generally, that's right. In the VIX settling down going lower this week, the VIX is measuring the complacency level of those who trade the S&P 500 futures.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And when it's low, it means that there's a lot of complacency. There's not a lot of expectation that looking 30 days out, that we're going to see a lot of volatility signaling oil. Chris talked about oil a little bit earlier, with tension heating up in the Middle East.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: You can see, we broke above this 20 day moving average here and we held above it and improved support. It looks to me like oils on the way up, that'll hit your gas tank. Kind of interesting though, there's a glut of supply right now. On the weekly chart, it's not quite as bullish because you can see it close below that 20-period moving average, that red line there.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And then it traded up. You can see that wick, it traded up into there and then traded off. So on the weekly, it still looks like the trend is down, but on the daily, there could be the beginning of an upward trend in oil.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: But I think with so much going on in the Middle East, so much going on with Russia, so much going on with Venezuela, oh, really tough to read what's going on in the oil market at the moment because everything is shifting. I think that's one of the most important aspects of what was happening this week, is this tectonic kind of geopolitical shift in world powers.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: It feels like these chairs are being reset. Chris, you and I talked about the fourth turning earlier this week and this demographer's idea. The world goes through these phases and then we're on this fourth turning.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: You could also argue from a geopolitical standpoint that the fact that we're becoming no longer unipolar world, that we're a multipolar world with China and the US at the powerhouses, there's this battle going on between these world powers. And anytime you have these world powers battling, that creates more uncertainty in what might come in the future.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So I'm tough to say, but oil looks generally weak, but starting to see maybe some pickup, which would tell you that maybe we're on the upswing. But given the upswing of more global tension and issues, right now there's a glut of supply.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: But I'm actually kind of shocked that oil didn't do anything more than it did do, given what happened with Venezuela, that we effectively took a shadow fleet boat that re-registered itself as a Russian boat on Wednesday. And then we've got everything going on with Iran, which it looks very likely that Iran is going to have a regime change here.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Hard to say because we're not getting a lot of media out of there, but the stuff I'm seeing so far looks like Iran might be in for a big change. All of that creating this really interesting oil environment. The market, at least, in oil is like, we don't know what to do. Maybe up? I don't know.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: But I would say that's kind of general gist of like the S&P 500. It's almost like there's so much going on that the vibe I get from the market is just kind of in a, I don't know.

DANO WEIR: Well, I guess we'll wait and see. Wait and see, but we hit an all-time high?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Well, yeah, but you can float higher, right? Like we didn't, we hit an all-time high, but barely even broke out of this. So, okay, let me get really picky with the chart, okay? So, yeah. Yes, we hit an all-time high. That's what the media will say that that's the eyeball.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: But so this, this candlestick back from Wednesday you can see it traded up and then trade it off as resistance. And so that was right at 694. We traded in and closed right at resistance, right? So if I'm a trader, I'd say, okay, well, let's, let's look at this on a one hour chart.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And there's a couple of ways you can read this. So one hour chart This is a candlestick for an hour in the market, right? A more short term. So if we want to look at the general like geography of what's going on in the market, say, hey, we hit an all time high on a weekly basis. That's positive, right?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: We're up green. Okay, well, let's really get under the hood and look at what's going on. Let's look at the hour chart. And you can see on Wednesday we hit this all-time high. We got rejected. We came down in under the 20-period moving average, moved up, and we traded up above it.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So we broke above what was the all-time high on Wednesday, came above it, and traded down into it. But what's interesting, and I think too early to tell, is typically when you have a breakout, and it goes up and then it comes back in and it really quickly shoots up. That means all the buyers took that spot and bought into it.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And you don't really have that. Like we just traded down into this all time high from Wednesday right here into the last hour of the close. So while it's bullish, yeah, it's an all time high. It's not super bullish in the sense that it hit that support level and bounced really hard.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So I think, think I would want to see some follow through come Monday and what happens when futures opens at three o'clock Western West Coast time on Sunday to start making a decision about are we really going to break out to an all-time high or is that it Trump certainly did his victory dance here and then it sold off immediately and then it worked its way back up trades in but from a trader perspective to say yes I think this trend still intact I want to see follow through here From a probability standpoint, I would be seeing more support in the market.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So yes, all the time, Hawaii, but asterisks.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: I would say one thing that's also kind of interesting under the surface is the possible shifting of some of the leadership within the U. S. Markets.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: If you look at the last six months, I think most people would be surprised to know that the small caps the the U. S small caps have outperformed even it's just put some pause on right now we need some applause oh not not only sorry not only the nasdaq but also not only the nasdaq also the S&P i think it's too early to tell if this is a trend but six months is you know that's enough that you should kind of oh it's noticeable right especially given the doldrums that the small caps were in for four or five years there.

DANO WEIR: You are on a run, dude. I mean, first bonds and then foreign stocks and now small caps. I mean, you are in your Renaissance era right now, Chris.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Well, yeah, I'll just, I'll just warn you if small value starts to outperform on a sustained basis, I will probably be hugely annoying on this show. So apologies ahead of time. Apologies ahead of time. It's been a long drought, guys.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So this is a great example, Chris. Thanks for bringing it up. So the Russell 2000 index tracks these 2000 kind of mid-smaller cap stocks, right? And you can see this chart where it breaks out, comes back in, it tests it. So this becomes support. And then you can see this candlestick here. That's that follow through that I was talking about. It's not really here yet.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So it's hard to say if we're really going to break out to all-time highs on the S&P. We haven't seen that follow-through candle that I would want to see, that you see on the Russell 2000. And then we went up. Now we've got resistance here. And then we traded down in to that area. But this is a great example because you can see the market in the Russell 2000 traded up, found support, traded, and then moved up.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And this area back from 2025 in December was an important area of support. That's where the buyers were sitting. They bought it up and they did it twice actually, because you can see they bought it here. And then there was this WIC on Friday the 9th, 2026. So early today, it traded down in for a minute on some news.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: I would question whether or not that WIC is accurate though. That's kind of a weird looking WIC. Sometimes you get these weird like blips on the chart where they just like, it's really weird WICs and then you look in the market data and you're like, you never traded it that much today, but a WIC shows up. So I still not figured out what that is.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Ag though, this is the bond index, right? And you can see where I go back to daily. We talked about an ascending triangle last week. And we've stayed up above that 20-period moving average, which is that trader average on that red line there.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And then we had a nice candlestick. So bond's actually looking pretty good. I would be bullish with that pattern right there on bonds. So you can do another victory lap on that one, Chris.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: But it did maybe me argue against it for a minute, but it's working its way up, but it did trade in and get rejected right at this level here. So that rejection level.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: We should also warn any say NVIDIA investors that are wanting to switch from NVIDIA to a, bullish ag chart, you are definitely not going to have the same results and sensations following a bond bull market that you did with your NVIDIA bull market. Expectations are important.

DANO WEIR: Chris needs his asset classes to perform because his football team didn't.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Oh, wow.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: That was live, man. That was completely unnecessary. Completely unnecessary.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Did Ole Miss win last night? They lost they lost Miami so interesting though the ag you can see though see how it's touched this resistance spot so let's call it a hundred on the ag right here right here right here and then it got rejected again so four times once you hit just well just like when the chart's going down if it's hitting a spot of support over and over.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: It's like breaking its way through that, and eventually the buyers stop buying it. So the idea here is that price moved up to 100 people sold, moved up to 100 people sold, moved up to 100 people sold, moved up to 100 people sold. Eventually those people selling there get tired, and then that's when you see the breakouts happen.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So that's interesting. Let's take a quick look at gold for the week. Gold didn't break out to an all time high, but still looks pretty strong. So I think we'll see some more movement there next week. Silver, closed out for the day that's at the week. Yep.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So the week silver closed at an all time high of 79, almost 80 bucks an ounce. I mean, that's just shocking growth. All 25, we were down here and then we just took off, I guess, 24, 25. Yeah.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And now we're up at 78 feels like a meme stock which pretty you know concerning on a lot of levels but Chris you made an interesting point earlier we're talking when you were there was someone that was talking about gold and silver and how yeah yeah his treasuries i think that's pretty yeah it was Darius Dale on macro voices and i would have to re-listen to understand the finer points.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Anybody that's ever listened to Darius Dale knows, super smart guy, talks very quickly and it's kind of hard to keep pace with. But essentially the upshot was that treasury rates should be closer to 6% given the fiscal situation in the United States. However, they're closer to 4%. And this is I'm talking about the 10-year treasuries.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And in his opinion, the pressure or the difference there went into gold and probably silver as well. But that's one of the reasons for so much of the performance in the precious metals is that energy that really would have been into the bond market has gone into gold and silver.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: And he's the first person I've heard mention that theory before. Seems to make sense. Yes. Interesting theory, on the mechanics of it. You'd have to listen to, this week's macro voices with Darius Dale.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Yeah. Interesting on the S And B 500. You can kind of see what did well this weekend. A lot of green on the screen from other stocks. It wasn't just like what we've seen so much in 2025, which was like these big dogs just driving that market higher. We're getting a lot of participation down lower, from these other companies. And, which is interesting.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: I've, I kind of watched this site SD bowling because it's just a site where you can buy gold and silver and other precious metals, at pretty reasonable prices. That's not advocating for it at all.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: But, I was noticing this week that copper is like out, like notify me when I can get copper one ounce bar, which tells you there's, there's some kind of supply issue going on in, the copper market so you can get a few of these copper rounds at very high premiums but that's interesting like in in perhaps that super cycle that people talk about and natural resources just started, just perhaps.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: When we look at NVIDIA, I don't think anything new newsworthy there. Why is NVIDIA matter? Because it's just such a big part of the S and P 500.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And it, it really drives the, market or has at least until recently, I thought this was interesting. I'd show you guys, the, the Venezuelan market, is up like 150% since they took El Maduro. Let's see, came in, meet in Mexico.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Anyway, where is the IELTS CV index? But anyway, yeah, the Venezuelan market. I don't know that I'd be piling my money into the Venezuelan market at this point, but I... Still kind of interesting when you think about it.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And then I thought just to point out that we have a 95% chance they don't lower rates on January 28th at this point. So rates stay steady, but interesting that that's the case. And then perhaps Trump saying, no, we're going to buy $200 billion in mortgage-backed securities because the Feds aren't going to lower the rate, so they got to do something to stimulate the housing market.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: I was talking to one of our other advisors earlier and the client had asked him, what do you think about the seasonality? Should we be buying and selling based upon seasonality?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And I was thinking to myself, it's so hard to use seasonality anymore because the government is so quick to interject on stuff. In another era, the Fed injecting $200 billion into the mortgage-backed security market would be a really big piece of news and nobody cares.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Oh yeah government's gonna do some open market operationing a big deal and i think that's just what you have to do when your dollar is the way the dollar is wouldn't mean that it's just they're printing out of control and we can't stop i think we're going to leave it there all i mean hey record highs we'll take it on the indexes lots going on under the hood and shoot let's hope we make it through the weekend without any crazy geopolitical news.

DANO WEIR: I got one thing to share out the door, guys. Can you see my screen here? Okay. I'm going to put this up on the, put this tab up. Are you able to, let's go. No, we can't see your screen. One second. One second. Hey, there we go. I just wanted to share this because we just dropped a new podcast episode on our other podcast.

DANO WEIR: It's all money on inheriting money. Myself and Darren host that show, that show. This is the weekly market up. Update show On The Markets. It's all money is life and finance and topics that situations you encounter as you go through your life and you have decisions to make.

DANO WEIR: And this week's episode to kicking off our third season, 10 ways to avoid the inheritors dilemma asking the question is inheriting money good? You would think that it would be, but we have 10 ways that 10 things that you should consider, If that were to be the case, or should that be the case somewhere down the road? So that episode is out now. You can find it on our website, SonomaWealth.com under resources.

DANO WEIR: It's also available where you're listening right now. So if you're on YouTube, if you're on Apple, if you're on Spotify, you can find it there. Just search for It's All Money. Check that episode out. We'd appreciate it. And thank you for checking out On The Markets. We will be back next week with another episode.

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CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Fermata Advisors LLC is registered as an investment advisor with the SEC and only transacts business in states where it is properly registered or is excluded or exempt from registration requirements. This content was produced by Fermata Advisors LLC, DBA Sonoma Wealth Advisors, DBA Fermata 401K, DBA Fermata Tax.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: The opinions expressed by Fermata Advisors LLC on this show are their own. Information presented on this program is believed to be factual and up-to-date, but we do not guarantee its accuracy and it should not be regarded as a complete analysis of the subjects discussed.

CHRIS SIPES CFP®: Discussions and answers to questions do not involve the rendering of personalized investment advice, but are limited to the dissemination of general information. A professional advisor should be consulted before implementing any of the options presented.

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