Hey listeners, it's Saturday, January 3rd. I'm Francesca Fontana for the Wall Street Journal,

and this is What's News and Markets, our look at the biggest stock moves of the week and the news

that drove them. Let's get to it. Welcome to 2026, everybody. Hope you all had a great time

ringing in the new year. I myself had a rager,

a marathon of Turner Classic movies with my cat. No better way to party in my book. Yes, it was a

sleepy holiday in my house, and it was a pretty sleepy week in the market to close out 2025.

No big rally to speak of on New Year's

Eve. But how did stocks do for the year? Which was a volatile year at that? Well, all three

indexes finished the year higher, with the S&P 500 marking its third back-to-back year of double-digit

gains. The S&P gained 16% in 2025, while the Dow gained 13%,

and the NASDAQ rose 20%. And on the week, all three major indexes ended lower. The S&P fell 1%,

the Dow lost about 0.7%, and the NASDAQ fell 1.5%. Now, the end of 2025 also brought a sudden end to the wild ride for precious metals,

as silver and others lost some of their shine for investors.

For months, investors had been snapping up precious metals funds as protection against

a potential weakening of the U.S.

dollar and uncertainty around richly valued tech stocks. But on Monday, silver futures experienced

their steepest one-day decline in almost five years. Why the slide? Well, exchange operator

CME group increased margin requirements to ensure traders put down more cash on their

bets, which CME and its peers typically do after price runups and commodities. And on Monday,

shares of silver specialist Hekla mining fell 5%, while shares of the gold mining giant Newmont

fell 5.6%. And on a weekly basis, Hekla ended down 6.6% while Newmont fell 4.3%.

So while I spent my holidays here in New York, those of you who traveled by air probably already have a good understanding of why some airline stocks were falling on Monday.

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