Market News: Iran & oil, Memory Chip Issues, YTD market performance

January 23, 2026

Market Performance YTD

Over the last couple weeks, we’ve been talking mostly about geopolitics.  But that hasnt really dampened the market.  At the moment, the S&P 500 is up +1.1% for the month!  That’s pretty good considering all the big risks we’ve faced.  

Interestingly, that move has been led by the small end of the market.  The Big 7 tech stocks are down -0.6%., and the top 100 stocks are down -0.3%.  The rally has been at the bottom end of the list — industrials, materials, and energy are leading the way!   Besides these, we’ve seen rallies in the small caps, semis, international stocks, and gold/silver.   Small caps have famously underperformed over the past decade.  Is this the year when they finally catch up?   Stay tuned.

Iran and Oil

It seemed like Iran was off our risk board.  But it’s back.  The US has moved a carrier battle group into the region.  President Trump said an “armada” is now in the region, and he further added:  “We’ll see what happens.”  

So, the US is now in a better position to launch a sustained and coordinated assault on Iran.  Will the US attack?  Who knows at this point.  But the oil market is acting like it will.  Brent crude is up 3%ish today.   Oil and the natural gas market are also rising partially due to the forecast of a massive winter storm set to affect dozens of US states this weekend.

Memory and Apple

Computer memory is in super high demand and short supply.  As a result, memory prices are skyrocketing.   This is due of of course to the AI data center boom, which is creating massive demand for servers.  This has driven a stock boom in the memory chip companies — Micron (MU), Sandisk (SNDK), Seagate (STX), and Western Digital (WDC).

However, lots of things other than cloud servers need memory — a PC, a iPhone, a CAR!, etc.  This spike in memory prices is about to make a wide range of electronics much more expensive.  In some cases, like with a high end iPhone, you might not even be able to get one at all if the the supply shortage gets severe enough.  

This is creating a bifurcation in the tech market — companies that make storage chips versus companies that need storage chips.  The demand for all of these things is super strong.  But the supply (and soon the higher price) could be headwinds for the latter group.