LIVE MARKETS-Santa was a no show, but Carson Group says no problem

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SANTA WAS A NO SHOW, BUT CARSON GROUP SAYS NO PROBLEM

In the first five trading days of 2026, the S&P 500 .SPX advanced 1.1%. It now stands up about 1.8% for the year.

According to Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at Carson Group, historically, when the first five days of the new year are higher, the full year is higher nearly 82% of the time and up more than 14% on average, vs. the average year higher about 72% of the time and up 9.6% on average.

Taking it a step further, Detrick said in a note out on Tuesday that a negative first five days takes the full year to positive just over a coin flip of the time and a modest 1% average return for the full year.

"No, you should never invest based on just one indicator, but we’d still put this in the 'better news than not' file for this new year. Oh, and when stocks are up more than 1% those first five days, something we did indeed accomplish this year, the returns get even better, up nearly 16% on average for the full year and higher more than 87% of the time."

In any event, Detrick notes that stocks fell during the historically bullish Santa Claus Rally (SCR) period. (The SCR is the final five trading days of December and first two of the new year). The SPX lost 0.11% during this most recent period, making it the first time in history Santa failed to show for three straight years.

Detrick says that when stocks fall during this period, it very well could be a warning sign, as he says Santa skipped out in 2000 and 2008, for instance.

However, he adds that "the good news is the past three times Santa didn’t come, stocks were still up nicely on the year. Of course, you could argue that in 2016 and last year not seeing Santa may have been a clue of some rough seas early in those years," Detrick writes.

That said, he relays that his friend Jeff Hirsch , CEO of Almanac Trader, says that to get the full picture, you need to look at a combination of the SCR, the first five days of the year, and January’s full month return.

Thus, Detrick says that in the event there is a positive January, then this trifecta would still be classified as overall net bullish in 2026.

Lastly, Detrick found five other years that didn’t see Santa, but had a positive first five days of the year. "I found it interesting that Q1 under this scenario could be rather weak, but the full year managed to do well overall. Peeling back the onion showed that two times the full year was negative, but the returns were only very slightly in the red, and the other three times all saw double-digit gains for the full year."

(Terence Gabriel)

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