Market News Today

January 27, 2026

Corning (GLW)

The biggest increase in the index this morning is Corning (GLW), up 12% on news of a partnership with Meta (META) for optical fiber and connectivity.   (No, they no longer make kitchenware, even tho their name is still on a lot of products.)  This company is more well known recently for “Gorilla Glass” on Android phones and the “ceramic shield” on iPhones. However, the most recent development is growth in fiber optics for AI-related build-outs.  And Meta just signed a big contract with them.  As a reminder, Meta is building out its own AI data centers for its platforms, rather than relying on the cloud platforms from AWS, Microsoft, or Google.  As a result, Meta is one of the biggest AI spenders, despite not having a “cloud” business model.

United Parcel Service (UPS)

UPS reported 4Q earnings that were slightly better than expected.  Their guidance for 2026 was better than expected on revenue.  However, UPS is less of a macro indicator that it usually is.  They’re going through a strategic “reset” of the business, by reducing the business that it does with Amazon.  In the past, Amazon accounted for a large portion of UPS revenue, but the profit margin on those shipments were not profitable.  As such, UPS made a decision to exit the business.  So results this year will be … tricky.  Analysts will have to parse out the differences in business trends between the core business and the shrinking Amazon piece.  But on the surface, this is a good result. 

UPS is noteworthy because of its high dividend yield – currently above 6%!  Mgmt confirmed they would not cut the dividend this quarter.  However, the risk remains, as their current free cash flow runrate is below the total dividend payment.

Union Pacific (UNP)

UNP is the largest rail stock in the US, operating predominantly on the West Cost.  UNP is in the midst of merger approval talks for Norfolk Southern (NSC), one of the two large rail operators on the east cost.  UNP revenues were a touch light in 4Q due to a 4% drop in shipments, and its guidance for 2026 was weak due to weaker volume.  Rail volumes are usually an economic indicator for both manufacturing and retail spending.

RTX (RTX)

RTX (formerly Raytheon) reported 4Q earnings this morning.  Results were slightly better, and guidance was inline.  Importantly, this was the first quarterly report for RTX since President Trump “ordered” the large defense companies to halt dividends and buybacks.  On the earnings call, the RTX CEO said he was committed to maintaining the dividend, saying they can both meet their commitments to the US military, while returning funds to shareholders.

Falling Dollar

Lastly, a word about the dollar.   The dollar has fallen sharply the last couple days.  It’s now at the lowest level since early 2022 when the Fed launched its rate increase cycle to fight inflation.  The most recent cause was the bolstering of support for the Japanese Yen.  But the dollar has been trending down steadily over the past year.  The main reason is that the Fed is engaging in a rate cutting cycle, so the spread between US rates and other countries rates is falling.  That’s the primary driver.  There are many “secondary” drivers however – international demand for US-denominated assets, perceived US political turbulence, US fiscal worries, etc.

Looking at the chart in the short-term, it can cause some concern.  But if you zoom out, you can see that the dollar swings greatly through all sorts of cycles.   I’m reluctant to call this the end of the dollar as a global reserve status.  (At least not  yet.)

Ironically, a weaker dollar means higher profits for US multi-national companies.  Overseas profits will be translated back into higher amounts of dollars, because of the weaker exchange rate.   It’s somewhat of an accounting fiction (if you assume it reverts back at some point).  But it’s a tailwind for earnings this year.

The Fed

As a reminder, we have a Fed meeting today and tomorrow. The market expects essentially no chance of a rate cut. So all of the news will come from Chair Powell's press conference afterwards. There is no Fed meeting in February. So the next chance for a cut will be in March. This Fed is very data dependent. And we'll have two more months of inflation and unemployment data by then. So it's hard to predict the odds of a rate cut from here.