Yahoo Finance Video und Julie Hyman Sat, January 17, 2026 at 8:00 PM GMT+9

In this video: ^DJI

^IXIC

^GSPC

2026 has already been an endurance test, as headlines out from the Trump administration are already creating political headwinds to challenge the market (^DJI, ^IXIC, ^GSPC) in the first few weeks of the year.

Barclays Head of US Equity Strategy Venu Krishna comments on how to apply 2025's lesson of cutting through the political noise to 2026.

Also watch Venu Krishna talk about the difficulties in navigating a highly volatile stock picker's market.

To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Morning Brief.

Video Transcript 00:00 Speaker A

And it's interesting that you say that because we were talking during the break about how we came back from our holiday breaks, rested, ready to go, and it has just been headline after headline, Truth social post after Truth social post coming from the president that have, um, created some turmoil in the market.

Is basically what you're saying like, AI is the more powerful force?

And maybe try to disregard some of that headline risk?

Yeah, broadly speaking, I think the lesson from 25 is to ignore the policy- driven uh sort of chaos. Uh and I think the message is broadly the same.

The tricky part is every now and then some of those policies are indeed uh translating into something very tangible. So what is the direction of that is important. And of course this year is a midterm elections. So you can expect more um what should I say, um you know, policies more friendly towards uh sort of that process uh but that has different implications. What does it mean for uh the deficits which has been actually going in the right direction, but what does it then mean in the credit markets? Right now the rates market for example is very benign. Uh the 10 year is still sitting at 415. We're not in danger zone at all. equities have done well. But to your point though, the policy uncertainty is adding fuel to this dispersion we're talking about where at the index level, things are relatively calm including with the VIx, uh but at the single stock level, uh the volatility is very high. And if you look at each of these pronouncements, whether it is about credit card capping fees, whether it's about the ability of institutional investors to buy into the housing market, whether defense companies being able to buy back stocks or pay their uh in compensation, each of these has caused a lot of volatility in individual stocks for a brief period of time. Uh and the question is, you know, how realistic is it and how likely is it that it translates? So in the case of financial for example, we remain very optimistic. I think valuations are decent, capital market activity is humming, M&A activity is likely to pick up. The yield curve has already steepened. I think it'll remain steep which is good for their fundamentals. So I think you have to have a thick skin uh and be able to look beyond the chaos uh while while tactically navigating the market uh from time to time.

A lot of meditation on the part of for desk uh desk traders this year, I think. Thanks so much, Venu. Appreciate it.