{"id":237411,"date":"2026-01-14T12:02:38","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T17:02:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ibkrcampus.com\/campus\/?p=237411"},"modified":"2026-01-14T12:31:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T17:31:21","slug":"flat-markets-big-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.interactivebrokers.com\/campus\/podcasts\/ibkr-podcasts\/flat-markets-big-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"Flat Markets, Big Questions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Markets may look calm on the surface, but beneath the flat tape are growing questions around rates, bonds, earnings and sector risk. In this fast paced Midweek Minute, Jeff Praissman and Scott Bauer break down what\u2019s really driving sentiment and what investors should be watching next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe title=\"Flat Markets, Big Questions\" allowtransparency=\"true\" height=\"150\" width=\"100%\" style=\"border: none; min-width: min(100%, 430px);height:150px;\" scrolling=\"no\" data-name=\"pb-iframe-player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podbean.com\/player-v2\/?i=3bmzx-1a1ad9f-pb&#038;from=pb6admin&#038;share=1&#038;download=1&#038;rtl=0&#038;fonts=Arial&#038;skin=1b1b1b&#038;font-color=ffffff&#038;logo_link=episode_page&#038;btn-skin=c73a3a\" loading=\"lazy\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-summary-ibkr-podcasts-ep-342\">Summary \u2013 IBKR Podcasts Ep. 342<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The following is a summary of a live audio recording and may contain errors in spelling or grammar. Although IBKR has edited for clarity no material changes have been made<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-jeff-praissman\"><strong>Jeff Praissman<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Hey everyone. This is Jeff Praissman with the Interactive Brokers Podcast.&nbsp;It\u2019s&nbsp;my pleasure to welcome back to the podcast studio Scott Bauer from Prosper Trading Academy. Hey Scott, how are&nbsp;you?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-scott-bauer\"><strong>Scott Bauer<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>I am great, Jeff. How about yourself?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-jeff-praissman-0\"><strong>Jeff Praissman<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Good, good. I hope you had a happy New Year. I know&nbsp;we\u2019re like&nbsp;halfway through January already, but I&nbsp;haven\u2019t&nbsp;seen you in a while. Hopefully, good New Year, good holiday season. And as we do every Wednesday when you come in, we talk about the markets\u2014not just what happened the past week, but also what might be&nbsp;coming up&nbsp;ahead with the market and economic events.&nbsp;So&nbsp;let\u2019s&nbsp;hit the&nbsp;ground&nbsp;running.&nbsp;How did the major stock&nbsp;indices perform&nbsp;last week? And you?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-scott-bauer-0\"><strong>Scott Bauer<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s&nbsp;funny, Jeff, because&nbsp;right off the top of my head, I&nbsp;would\u2019ve&nbsp;said that the markets were down, right? But when I actually went back and looked at the week,&nbsp;we\u2019re&nbsp;almost flat across the board. The S&amp;P&nbsp;literally flat, the Dow up slightly, the Nasdaq flat.&nbsp;It certainly seems like the overriding trajectory would be that we are negative, that we\u2019re down, but we\u2019re actually not.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-jeff-praissman-1\"><strong>Jeff Praissman<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Yeah,&nbsp;it\u2019s&nbsp;funny what whole, I&nbsp;guess,&nbsp;mental image goes into it, right?&nbsp;\u2019Cause&nbsp;you would think&nbsp;we\u2019re&nbsp;down. But when you&nbsp;actually look&nbsp;at the data, like&nbsp;we\u2019re&nbsp;flat. But I think&nbsp;you\u2019re&nbsp;not&nbsp;alone in&nbsp;thinking\u2014if you pulled eight&nbsp;outta&nbsp;10 people in the street that follow the markets, I think they would&nbsp;probably agree&nbsp;with you.&nbsp;\u201cOh, we\u2019re down,\u201d but&nbsp;we\u2019re&nbsp;not.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\u2019s&nbsp;no shortage of headlines, right? No shortage of real events. And unfortunately, not all of \u2019em&nbsp;positive. But what were some of the key ones\u2014events just popping up as far as economic events or real events\u2014that&nbsp;seemed to be&nbsp;taking center stage, at least for the short term, that you think had some&nbsp;impact&nbsp;on the market?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-scott-bauer-1\"><strong>Scott Bauer<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Absolutely. Geopolitical events are all over the place right now.&nbsp;There\u2019s too many to actually name, so there\u2019s a lot of headline risk there.&nbsp;When we take it to&nbsp;what\u2019s&nbsp;happening here in eco data\u2014CPI yesterday, good print; PPI data this morning,&nbsp;really hot. So that is very confusing, in my opinion, for&nbsp;the marketplace. Not for what the Fed\u2019s&nbsp;gonna&nbsp;do in January, because the consensus&nbsp;was&nbsp;they&nbsp;weren\u2019t&nbsp;gonna&nbsp;do anything anyway.&nbsp;But moving forward here, what are they going to do? And then obviously, with the kickoff of earnings season, we all always look&nbsp;to&nbsp;the banks, which do kick off the earnings season. And so far, those reports have not been great. I would say that the numbers for the banks&nbsp;haven\u2019t&nbsp;been bad, but the&nbsp;market&nbsp;reaction\u2014certainly not positive at all.&nbsp;That could have something to do with the 10% limit on credit card fees. Maybe not. But as you said, there\u2019s just news completely across the board here.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-jeff-praissman-2\"><strong>Jeff Praissman<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>And you mentioned earnings\u2014it\u2019s&nbsp;basically kicking&nbsp;off earnings season.&nbsp;So&nbsp;the week ahead, what are some of the big earnings, and are there any big economic indicators coming out that investors would be on the watch for from now until, like, next time we talk next Wednesday?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-scott-bauer-2\"><strong>Scott Bauer<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>We get more banks.&nbsp;The big&nbsp;guys like Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet\u2014they\u2019re&nbsp;all the following weeks.&nbsp;So&nbsp;there could be some lead-up. Those stocks have really been under pressure recently, so we could see some lead-up to that.&nbsp;But I think what we really need to watch is this bond market, as we have talked about. And you know that 4.2&nbsp;on&nbsp;the 10-year\u2014that has been that magic resistance. And I think&nbsp;it\u2019s&nbsp;been four months since it traded over that.&nbsp;We\u2019ve&nbsp;tested it repeatedly, and the market has hung in there, and we&nbsp;haven\u2019t&nbsp;seen it break through.&nbsp;And if we start to see this eco data, much like PPI was\u2014some strength here\u2014and even retail sales, which was pretty good, that&nbsp;could push bond yields on that 10-year over 4.20, which I believe would be somewhat negative for the equity markets.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-jeff-praissma-n\"><strong>Jeff Praissma<\/strong>n<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>And&nbsp;so&nbsp;you led me right into my next question\u2014my final question. But I was&nbsp;gonna&nbsp;ask you: what trends or sectors might present some opportunities or risks for investors for the next couple&nbsp;weeks,&nbsp;end&nbsp;of the month, or whatever. Obviously, like 2025 is the year of AI, so I think we can just maybe ignore AI for right now and see if&nbsp;there\u2019s&nbsp;anything else out there.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-scott-bauer-3\"><strong>Scott Bauer<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Yeah, a couple I have my eye on is&nbsp;energy-related. I think with this rally that we\u2019ve seen accrue over the last week or so, pretty much based on geopolitical events, I think it\u2019s a good opportunity to get short in that sector\u2014whether it\u2019s through an individual stock, oil, crude futures, whatever it might be.&nbsp;I think there&nbsp;is an opportunity there because&nbsp;we\u2019re&nbsp;still seeing record production. Demand is still not&nbsp;up to snuff. I also like cybersecurity. Some of the stocks that have gotten hit recently\u2014Snowflake,&nbsp;I know Palo Alto was in the news.&nbsp;There\u2019s&nbsp;some news this morning as well.&nbsp;So&nbsp;cybersecurity is one that I would watch for potential upside.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-jeff-praissman-3\"><strong>Jeff Praissman<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Scott, as always, this has been great. For our listeners, you can find more from&nbsp;<a href=\"mailto:scott@prospertradinguh.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">scott@prospertradinguh.com<\/a>.&nbsp;And also&nbsp;on our website, go to ibkr.com, go&nbsp;to Education. You can see past podcasts, webinars, and articles as well from Prosper Trading Academy.&nbsp;Scott, thanks a lot for coming by, and&nbsp;yeah, look forward to seeing you&nbsp;next week again.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-scott-bauer-4\"><strong>Scott Bauer<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>We will see you next week.&nbsp;Thanks&nbsp;so much, Jeff.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-jeff-praissman-4\"><strong>Jeff Praissman<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>All right.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Markets may look calm on the surface, but beneath the flat tape are growing questions around rates, bonds, earnings and sector risk. In this fast paced Midweek Minute, Jeff Praissman and Scott Bauer break down what\u2019s really driving sentiment and what investors should be watching next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":914,"featured_media":237412,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10842,13857],"tags":[2255,217,11749,2397,3221,2885,1525,446,21031,2099,850,12835,1383,10995,72,600,19392,18379,11838],"contributors-categories":[13576,16315],"class_list":{"0":"post-237411","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ibkr-podcasts","8":"category-podcasts","9":"tag-bond-yields","10":"tag-cpi","11":"tag-cybersecurity-stocks","12":"tag-earnings-season","13":"tag-economic-data","14":"tag-energy-sector","15":"tag-equities","16":"tag-federal-reserve","17":"tag-flat-markets","18":"tag-interactive-brokers","19":"tag-interest-rates","20":"tag-investing-strategy","21":"tag-market-sentiment","22":"tag-market-volatility","23":"tag-markets","24":"tag-ppi","25":"tag-prosper-trading-academy","26":"tag-scott-bauer","27":"tag-stock-market-outlook","28":"contributors-categories-interactive-brokers","29":"contributors-categories-prosper-trading-academy"},"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.9 (Yoast SEO v27.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Flat Markets, Big Questions | IBKR Podcasts<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Markets may look calm on the surface, but beneath the flat tape are growing questions around rates, bonds, earnings and sector risk. 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