THE DEAN’S LIST: The Week Everything Collides

Dean’s note: There are so many things going on right now. Iran is in chaos with hundreds dead. Greenland tensions keep rising. The DOJ is going after the Fed Chair with four months left in his term. Trump wants to cap credit card rates at 10%. And JPMorgan just kicked off earnings season this morning. Gold hit another record overnight. This is the kind of week where you need to stay calm, stay diversified, and not react to every headline. Let's walk through what actually matters.

Monday was wild. The stock market opened down almost 500 points on the Dow after news broke that the DOJ had opened a criminal investigation into Fed Chair Powell. But by the end of the day? Both the S&P 500 and the Dow closed at new all-time highs. The Russell 2000 small-cap index hit a record too.

That kind of swing tells you something: markets are looking past the noise. But there's a lot of noise to look past.

Here's your calendar for the week:

I've been doing this for decades. I can count on one hand the Januarys with this many things happening at once. Let me break down what matters.

Yesterday we got the December CPI report. The headline: prices rose 2.7% over the past year. That's exactly what economists expected. Core inflation - which takes out food and energy - came in at 2.6%, which was actually a little better than expected. It's the lowest core reading since March 2021.

But here's what I want you to understand, because I think the official numbers are telling you a story that's already out of date.

If you strip CPI down to its biggest drivers, the data is already telling you inflation is below two percent. Market rents - what landlords are actually charging for new leases - have been flat to down for over a year. Used car prices are falling again. Goods deflation never really stopped. The December report even showed used cars down 1.1%.

So why does CPI still show 2.7%? Shelter is doing all the damage, and it's a lag.

Let me explain. The way the government measures housing costs is weird. They don't look at what landlords are charging right now. They look at surveys that are six to twelve months old. So CPI is still being propped up by housing math that's stale. Private rent indexes - the ones that track real-time prices - rolled over last year.

Policy is looking in the rearview mirror, not the windshield.

When you look at real-time inputs rather than backward-looking surveys, inflation pressure is basically gone. Wage growth is cooling. Companies are losing pricing power. Profit margins are getting squeezed. By the time CPI confirms what's actually happening, the economy will already be slowing.

This is why markets are ignoring noisy CPI prints. Investors are looking at real-world pricing behavior and saying the Fed has already won its inflation fight. The risk now isn't inflation. It's staying too tight for too long because the data arrives late.

Dean’s note:
Don't let the 2.7% headline scare you. The underlying trend is your friend. The Fed will figure this out eventually - probably by June. In the meantime, stay invested.

JPMorgan kicked off earnings season this morning, and the numbers were solid. They beat expectations with $5.23 per share (excluding a one-time charge from taking over the Apple Card from Goldman Sachs). Revenue hit $46.77 billion. CEO Jamie Dimon called the economy "resilient" but warned about "complex geopolitical conditions" and "the risk of sticky inflation."

The big numbers: JPMorgan made $57 billion in profit for the full year. They're projecting $103 billion in net interest income for 2026. That's real money.

But here's where it gets interesting. Friday night, Trump posted on Truth Social calling for a 10% cap on credit card interest rates for one year, starting January 20. The average credit card rate right now is around 22-23%.

American Express fell 4.3% Monday. Capital One dropped over 6%. Synchrony Financial tumbled 8%. Even the big diversified banks like Citi and JPMorgan took hits.

Dean’s note:
This is another bulldozer tactic to get something out of the banks as a negotiation tactic. Is 10% an opening bid? Probably. There's a long distance between 10% and what companies charge today.

The final outcome will likely be much more benign. And here's the thing the market is missing: the largest banks will benefit from lower short-term rates more than they get hurt by these threats. If rates come down - which they will - banks make more money on mortgages, car loans, and business lending. Credit cards are important, but they're not the whole story.

Listen to what bank CEOs say about consumer credit quality over the next few days. If Jamie Dimon sounds worried about people falling behind on payments, that matters more than whether JPMorgan beat estimates by a nickel.

Look, there's plenty of good and bad that comes with a Trump administration, and let's be honest, a lot of bulldozer tactics. But subpoenaing the sitting Fed Chair with just a few months left? That's just not the kind of lawfare that signals stability. We can do better.

Here's what happened: The DOJ served the Federal Reserve with grand jury subpoenas threatening criminal indictment. The official reason? Powell's testimony last June about a renovation project at Fed headquarters that's had cost overruns. Powell released a video Sunday night calling it a "pretext" for pressuring the Fed on interest rates.

Powell's term ends in May. There's no historical precedent for yanking a Fed Chair out right at the end of their term. It's just in poor taste.

Here's the thing: if you want to move the needle on interest rates, announce the successor and let them jawbone a bit. That'll do more than any forced exit. Markets are forward-looking. The moment a new Fed Chair is named, traders start pricing in their policy stance. You don't need drama to shift expectations - you need clarity.

It's honestly pretty sad that with just four months left, we're resorting to this kind of sideshow. All Trump has to do is name the new Fed Chair, let them get some airtime, and the markets will adjust on their own. We don't need this kind of theater.

Dean’s note:
At the end of the day, just announcing the next Fed Chair and giving them the mic is going to drive markets a lot more than dragging Powell out. It's a simpler, classier move. And let's be real - it's a lot more in line with how we should be handling things if we want the world to trust us with their capital.

What started as protests over a collapsing currency has become the most serious challenge to Iran's government in years. Human rights groups have documented over 500 deaths and counting. The regime has shut down the internet for over 5 days to hide what's happening.

Trump's response has been blunt: "I tell the Iranian leaders: You better not start shooting, because we'll start shooting too." His team is considering options ranging from cyber attacks to targeted strikes.

Iran's attorney general declared protesters "enemies of God" - which is a death penalty charge under Iranian law. Iran has threatened to target U.S. bases if we intervene.

Why this matters for your portfolio: Oil prices are elevated on Middle East risk. Gold is benefiting from safe-haven demand. Defense stocks are watching closely. A regime change in Iran would be one of the most significant shifts in decades.

Dean’s note:
This could go many different ways. The regime could crush the protests like before. Or this could be the beginning of the end for the Islamic Republic. Either way, the next few weeks are critical. Don't make big bets on any single outcome. Stay diversified.

Gold hit fresh all-time highs again - above $4,630. It's up about 73% from a year ago. Silver is also at records around $85. Multiple banks are now calling for $5,000 gold by the end of 2026.

What's driving this?

Meanwhile, the January Barometer is flashing green. The S&P 500 was up in the first week of trading. Since 1950, when the market starts January positive, it averages a 16% gain for the full year and finishes higher 86% of the time. I think this is a fun little statistical toy to play with, but I don’t make forecasts based on a single month’s performance and neither should you.

Gold isn't a trade for me - it's insurance. When central bank independence is under attack, when the world is uncertain, when deficits are exploding - that's when you want some hard assets. A 5% position won't make you rich, but it might help you sleep at night.

I've been thinking about what makes this particular January feel different.

It's not just the number of big events - though CPI, bank earnings, a possible Supreme Court ruling, a criminal investigation of the Fed Chair, Iran potentially collapsing, and Greenland tensions that could break NATO is a lot for one week. It's that we're not just debating whether the economy grows 2% or 2.5%. We're debating whether our institutions work the way we've always assumed.

And yet. The S&P 500 closed at all-time highs Monday. The Dow is knocking on 50,000. JPMorgan just posted strong numbers. The January Barometer is positive. AI investment is accelerating. People are still spending money.

This is the paradox of right now: big-picture uncertainty is elevated, but the economy keeps chugging along. Markets can climb walls of worry - and they have been. The investors who tried to time every headline over the past three years have generally done worse than those who just stayed invested.

On the Fed situation: Look, I understand frustration with Powell. There are real debates about whether the Fed was too slow raising rates, too slow cutting them. But the way to handle that is to name a successor and give them the microphone. Let the new Chair signal what they'll do. Let markets adjust. That's how it's supposed to work.

Dragging the sitting Chair through a criminal investigation with four months left? That's not moving rates - that's eroding trust in the institutions that make the dollar the world's reserve currency. And that trust is what underpins everything in your portfolio.

On inflation: The 2.7% headline looks scarier than reality. Strip out the stale housing data and inflation is basically at the Fed's target. The risk isn't prices running away—it's the Fed staying too tight for too long because they're looking at old numbers.

My framework for the week:

The week is going to be noisy. The data will come. The rulings will be issued. The headlines will scream. Through it all, your job is simple: stay calm, stay diversified, stay the course.

We've been here before. Not this exact moment, but moments that felt just as big. Markets absorbed them. The disciplined investors came out ahead.

They will this time, too.

— Dean

P.S.:
I wrote a full 2026 forecast that explains why Wall Street's consensus targets might be way too low. The historical patterns around lame-duck midterm years tell a very different story than what most strategists are publishing. Read The Dean's List 2026 Forecast here.