By Connor Smith

S&P 7000. The S&P 500 is back in striking distance of the 7,000 mark.

The market benchmark gained 0.5% Monday, to 6,950, for its fourth straight positive session. It's the index's fourth-highest close on record.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 314 points, or 0.6%. It's up to 49,412 and nearing its own milestone.

The Nasdaq Composite gained 0.4% to move within 1.5% of its Oct. 29 closing high.

Stocks shrugged off premarket struggles in the wake of heightened tariff and government shutdown worries after President Donald Trump threatened 100% tariffs on Canada and another American was shot by a federal agent in Minnesota.

The fallout from Minnesota increased the risk of a government shutdown if Democrats hold up a funding bill over money for the Department of Homeland Security.

But stocks managed to pick up steam shortly after the open, and a broad rally took hold. The White House may be looking to dial back the temperature. Trump said on his Truth Social platform that he spoke with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

"It was a very good call, and we, actually, seemed to be on a similar wavelength," Trump said. "I told Governor Walz that I would have Tom Homan call him, and that what we are looking for are any and all Criminals that they have in their possession. The Governor, very respectfully, understood that, and I will be speaking to him in the near future."

Jonathan Krinsky, BTIG's chief market technician, writes that this is the third week since the S&P 500 and Dow approached the 7,000 and 50,0000 milestones, respectively, before pulling back.

"This consolidation has allowed overbought conditions to alleviate, and while we still view various sentiment measures as complacent, the setup for a breakout through 7k is better now than three weeks ago, in our view," Krinsky writes.

Whether the indexes finally break through will likely be determined by this week's Federal Open Market Committee meeting and a gauntlet of earnings reports. Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Tesla, and Apple are among the megacap firms set to report results later this week.

"Getting through that without any major hiccups should see some volatility compression, which would be another tailwind," Krinsky writes.

The Hot Stock: Arista Networks +5.4% The Biggest Loser: Trade Desk -7.5%

Best Sector: Communication Services +1.3% Worst Sector: Consumer Discretionary -0.7%

Meme Stocks Turn Five

Can you believe it's been five years since the GameStop stock mayhem? Nobody I talked to for this week's Barron's cover story can either.

As part of the story, I spoke with key players like former SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen, and Interactive Brokers Chairman Thomas Peterffy.

Among the biggest shifts, they told me, have come in retail participation and on GameStop's balance sheet:

Retail participation has remained a major force in markets, driving big moves in everything from electric vehicles to anything that touches artificial intelligence.

Though some investors stuck around in GameStop and AMC Entertainment Holdings, other meme traders found new targets. In July, meme stock investors calling themselves the "Open Army" swarmed Opendoor Technologies and turned activist: They rallied against former CEO Carrie Wheeler and in favor of co-founder Keith Rabois. Wheeler left the company in August, and Rabois joined the firm's board with co-founder Eric Wu in September. Shares have traded sideways ever since.

Robinhood says that 90% of the 2.5 million accounts it added in January 2021 are still on the platform.

The brokerage was up to 26.9 million funded customers in November 2025. Steve Quirk, Robinhood's chief brokerage officer, tells Barron's that many of the people who came into Robinhood through meme stocks have grown up a bit getting involved in retirement accounts, high-yield savings accounts, and other less exciting avenues of investing.

"We have kept up with them," Quirk says. "And it's sort of their evolution. They were 20-something-year-olds. Now, maybe they're in their 30s. And they're sort of progressing along the path that a lot of people take with respect to investing."

Meanwhile, GameStop is sitting on $4.7 billion in net cash on its balance sheet after raising billions by selling stock in the wake of its higher valuation.

Cohen says, "The business would be bankrupt by now, that's for sure," if he hadn't got involved. "It would look like all the other retailers that have gone bankrupt. It's a long list: J.C. Penney. RadioShack. Circuit City."

The question is what will GameStop do with that money? Cohen told me he's open to deploying the cash in ways unrelated to its core business.

At least one major player in GameStop is feeling nostalgic: Michael Burry, the investor whose bet against the housing market ahead of the subprime mortgage crisis was chronicled in The Big Short book and film, revealed in a Substack post on Monday that he's back in GameStop stock after selling his stake in late 2020.

Burry is betting Cohen can follow in the footsteps of Warren Buffett. Buffett famously transformed Berkshire Hathaway from a dying textile firm into a conglomerate by using cash to invest in other businesses.

You can read more of this week's cover story here and more from Cohen on the Berkshire comparison here.

The Calendar

Boeing, BXP, F5, General Motors, HCA Healthcare, Invesco, Kimberly-Clark, NextEra Energy, Northrop Grumman, Paccar, Packaging Corp. of America, PPG Industries, Roper Technologies, RTX, Seagate Technology Holdings, Synchrony Financial, Sysco, Texas Instruments, Union Pacific, UnitedHealth Group, and United Parcel Service report earnings tomorrow.

What We're Reading Today

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      Trade Pact. 
 
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   -- Polymarket Strikes Multi-Year Deal With Major League Soccer 
 
   -- How Nvidia Just Made CoreWeave Stock a Winner Again 
 
   -- Figma's IPO Is a Cautionary Tale. How AI Busted the Stock. 

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January 26, 2026 19:55 ET (00:55 GMT)

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