Investing Update: The Miserable 7 Are on Sale
What I'm buying, selling & watching
It was another deflating week for the stock market. Not a dramatic selloff. Just a slow, grinding, lower-lows kind of market that wears investors down week after week.
The S&P 500 finished in the red for the fifth straight week, its longest losing streak since the 2022 bear market. The Dow matched that, with both indexes now carrying their longest weekly losing streaks since May 2022.
The Nasdaq was the headline. It crossed into correction territory on Thursday, falling more than 10% from its October 29 high, and it didn’t recover by Friday’s close. It has now gone 102 sessions without a new high, the longest drought since 2023.
The Dow held up relatively better, down less than 1% on the week, while the Russell 2000 was the lone bright spot with a 0.5% gain, though small caps are still down 2% on the year.
Oil crossed $100 and closed the week there, now up 74.6% year to date. That number continues to be the story hiding in plain sight. Bitcoin dropped another 6.7% and is now down more than 24% on the year. Gold gave back a little on the week but is still one of the few places investors have made money in 2026, up 3.5% YTD.
Market Recap
Weekly Heat Map Of Stocks
YTD Heat Map of Stocks
More Pain Ahead?
I keep waiting for the panic. The real one. The kind where investors throw everything out the window and the market finally finds a floor. It has not happened yet. And until it does, I do not think we have seen the bottom.
The reason is simple. One waterway is holding this entire market hostage. Until the Strait of Hormuz opens, nothing else really matters. Every headline out of the Middle East moves stocks. Every rumor gets priced in instantly. The market is stuck in no man’s land, and there is no other catalyst in sight.