Dow Jones Today: Stock Futures Little Changed to End Holiday-Shortened Week; Gold, Silver Hit New Record Highs

Got a Big Pile Of Unwanted Stuff to Send Back? You’re Not Alone—It’s Return Season

42 minutes ago

Gather up the itchy socks and unwanted accessories. It’s return season. 

Returns tend to rise during the last days of December, and Adobe Analytics data suggests the spike may be even pronounced this year. Returns this month were running about 2.5% below where they were midway through the holiday season in 2024, according to Adobe, which analyzed millions of online transactions—so we’re either getting better at selecting presents, or slower at sending back unwanted stuff.

It’s likely the latter, according to Schorr Packaging, a shipping material and services firm that called returns “practically a holiday tradition.”1 Half of shoppers return gifts within a week, while roughly another quarter do so within two or three weeks, according to consumer surveys Schorr conducted.

The rise of online shopping—and expansion of flexible return policies during the pandemic—have contributed to higher return rates, the National Retail Federation trade group said. Companies on average expect 16% of their 2025 sales to be returned, according to the NRF and Happy Returns, a UPS company that facilitates returns. That’s down slightly from last year, but double the 8% return rate in 2019, the groups said.

Despite the growth of e-commerce, many Americans take a traditional approach to returns. Bringing unwanted items back to a store is the most common return tactic, according to Schorr, ahead of using third-party drop-off sites and mailing back products.

Read the full article here.

–Sarina Trangle

Expecting a Big Raise in 2026? Don’t Count on It

1 hr 30 min ago

Employers in the year ahead are likely to remain reluctant to embark on any major hiring sprees, and the lack of demand for workers should serve to keep a lid on pay increases.

Several major forecasts and surveys of employers largely call for the continuation of the job market’s recent trends, in which hiring has slowed to a crawl compared to the last few years. Employers have been reluctant to hire too many workers, but also wary of mass layoffs, as economic uncertainty caused by unpredictable tariff policies has made planning future expansions difficult.

U.S. employers plan to give raises averaging 3.3%, a tenth of a percentage point lower than in 2025, according to a survey by payroll software company Payscale.

Forecasters at jobs website Indeed expect the job market to remain in low gear over the next year, with job openings stabilizing rather than continuing to decline, and unemployment rising, but not too much. None of that would push employers to give out huge pay raises like they did in 2022 when labor was in high demand, and the economy was reopening from the pandemic.

Wage growth, as measured by salaries advertised in job postings, has cooled down over the last year, according to Indeed.

Read the full article here.

–Diccon Hyatt

Stock Futures Little Changed to End Holiday-Shortened Week

2 hr 23 min ago

Futures contracts associated with the Dow Jones Industrial Average pointed down 0.1%.

S&P 500 futures were fractionally lower.

Nasdaq 100 futures were fractionally higher.