Short Thoughts: January 5, 2026

Cassandra Divines Venezuela

Do

not

Yaawwwwn.

In the wake of America’s explosive weekend kidnapping of an OPEC country’s leader, the United States stock and bond market repercussions here are virtually zero. After all, Venezuela was a barely functioning country, with decrepit oil infrastructure and unproven mountains of Coltan.

So, no immediate effect on just about anything. Which is all the pod shops and wealth managers care about.

After all, in plush board rooms all across the world, the world’s largest financial institutions voted on their 2026 asset allocations. As the first day of trading in the new year showed us, they will not back away anytime soon from selling SaaS and buying AI hardware stocks.

You see, it worked last year, so…Thank you Jonathan Krinsky of BTIG, my long-time prime broker and work-home to many friends.

So, this coming week looks off to a good start at the moment.

Sunday night Bloomberg stock index futures are generally green.

Sunday night Bloomberg commodities futures are little changed. Oil is down less than 1%, a cool non-reaction.

Nevertheless, for the intermediate and long-run, the game just changed.