U.S. Stocks Edge Lower at the Open as Volatility Ticks Up, Gold and Oil Climb

Why Most Investors Sell at the Worst Possible Time 👇

U.S. stocks were narrowly mixed just after the opening bell Tuesday, with major indexes hovering near flat as volatility rose and commodities advanced.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 20.04 points, or 0.04%, to 48,441.9. The S&P 500 eased 1.38 points, or 0.02%, to 6,904.36, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 7.40 points, or 0.03%, to 23,466.9. Small caps were slightly higher, with the Russell 2000 up 0.12 point, or 0.05%, to 250.00.

Measures of investor anxiety moved higher. The CBOE Volatility Index, or VIX, rose 0.24 to 14.44, a modest pickup that contrasted with the subdued moves in equities.

In commodities, crude oil futures for February delivery rose 0.28, or 0.48%, to $58.36. Gold for February delivery jumped 59.80, or 1.38%, to $4,403.40, extending its early advance as investors leaned into traditional hedges even with stocks largely steady. Bitcoin also traded higher, rising $709.47, or 0.81%, to $88,043.01.

Against that backdrop, some strategists have pointed to the interplay between wage gains and consumer prices when assessing household balance sheets.

Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management, noted that while the consumer-price index’s price level has increased 26% since 2019, wages have increased 30%, a comparison that can shape the market’s broader view of affordability and purchasing power.

Investors are also beginning to focus on early-January catalysts for large-cap technology and the AI supply chain. AInvest’s preview of CES 2026 describes the event, scheduled for Jan. 6–9 in Las Vegas, as a checkpoint for gauging where capital spending and product cycles may concentrate next, with press events starting as early as Jan. 4 and roughly 150,000 attendees expected. The preview highlights Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s keynote on Jan. 5 and AMD CEO Lisa Su’s planned appearance, arguing that the show’s central theme is no longer whether AI is emerging but how quickly it is being integrated into devices, data centers, and industrial applications. The note also points to edge AI, robotics and “software-defined” vehicles as areas where investor attention could sharpen as companies use CES to frame their 2026 road maps.

For now, the early session’s tape showed a market that was calm on the surface—indexes barely moved—while crosscurrents in volatility, metals, energy and crypto signaled a continued appetite to position for the next catalyst.