A trader work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during morning trading on January 06, 2026 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Stock futures hovered near the flatline overnight after the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average snapped three-day win streaks.
Futures tied to the 30-stock Dow added just 12 points. S&P 500 futures were little changed, while Nasdaq 100 futures were down 0.1%.
The S&P 500 and the Dow Industrials ended Wednesday’s regular session in the red, even after touching fresh all-time records during the day. The broad market index shed about 0.3% while the Dow fell 466 points, or roughly 0.9%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained nearly 0.2%, aided by a 2.4% jump in Google parent Alphabet that led the company’s market cap to surpass Apple’s for the first time since 2019.
Crude oil prices dropped on Wednesday after President Donald Trump said that interim authorities in Venezuela will be turning over as much as 50 million barrels of oil to the U.S., prompting concerns over increasing oil supply. Shares of big oil refining companies Valero Energy and Marathon Petroleum climbed on Wednesday, after sources told CNBC that Venezuela will ship sanctioned oil to the U.S. indefinitely.
Markets have largely shrugged off global geopolitical risks, but growing tensions could test the resilience of stocks as the new year begins.
“Geopolitical headlines tend to be market moving in very short periods of time … but they tend to get priced in and then the markets go back to watching the things that are more drivers of price action. For example, profits, margins, valuation and other metrics,” Anne Walsh, CIO of Guggenheim Partners told CNBC’s “Power Lunch” on Wednesday. “What ends up happening is that ‘buy the dip’ mentality returns and these very limited opportunities exist to reposition portfolios.”
“Being diversified and being ready is probably the best insurance, if you will, in terms of protecting portfolios and also being able to take advantage of opportunities,” Walsh said, adding that the stock market fundamentals remain “fairly good” with normalizing valuations and expected rate cuts ahead this year from the Federal Reserve.
Still, Walsh, like many other investors, remains watchful of headline risks posed to the market.
Investors this week are awaiting the Supreme Court’s opinions on the legality of tariffs imposed by Trump expected Friday, which Walsh said could lead to some potential market volatility.
