Next one or two months, there are several key time windows to watch closely.

December's schedule is quite packed: on the 16th, the November unemployment rate and non-farm employment data will be released. Last time, the unemployment rate stayed at 4.4%, and this time, expectations are still unclear; on the 18th, the November CPI will be announced, with both previous values and market expectations still a mystery; on the 19th, the Bank of Japan will hold its monetary policy meeting. The last time, the base rate was maintained at 0.5%, and how they will adjust it this time depends on their weighing of options.

Moving into January 2026, on the 9th, December unemployment rate and non-farm data will be released; on the 13th, December CPI will be announced; and on the 29th, the Federal Reserve’s rate decision meeting will be held. In between, there are Christmas and New Year holidays — during this period, liquidity will likely be drained, and markets tend to fall into silence.

Currently, prices have been range-bound between 83 and 94 for nearly a month. Will there be a violent drop similar to 2022? Personally, I lean towards unlikely; prices probably won’t fall below 80 or even deeper. The logic is quite clear — we are not in the early tightening phase of the rate hike cycle, nor in a crisis moment like 2007-2008, when economic recession forced rescue measures. The main issue now is the lack of new positive expectations to support the market, so it is likely to continue oscillating within this range, waiting for a new trading logic to emerge. In plain terms, this wave is a phased bear market adjustment.

This morning, Powell once again said that there will be no rate cut in January. Of course, he has to state that — the data hasn’t come out yet, so it’s impossible to send an early signal. Recall that in October, he said there would be no rate cut in December, but in the end, there was a cut — that’s a typical expectation management strategy. We need to wait until the actual data for November and December are released for the market to reset expectations.

Another potential variable: around Christmas or New Year, Trump might announce a new candidate for Federal Reserve Chair. Once the new chair candidate is confirmed...