The bold American move to snatch Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro and his wife has given stock futures a boost in trading late Sunday.
The gains came as Venezuelan opponents to Maduro’s presidency celebrated all weekend around the world — from Australia to England, Spain to Florida and New York.
So did Donald Trump and his Administration.
Madura and his wife Celia Flores were seized at the Presidential compound in Caracas early Saturday, helicoptered to the giant amphibious ship USS Iwo Jima standing by off the Venezuelan coast, and then flown directly to New York that night.
The couple may make their first U.S. court appearances on drug trafficking charges on Monday.
The celebrations inevitably wound down, and, as they did, especially Sunday, the questions came fast and furiously. The answers may come later.
In futures trading early Monday, the Dow Jones industrial average was up about 30 points in futures trading. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was up 11 points. But trading pushed Nasdaq-100 futures up 98 points, suggesting a decent open, certainly for tech stocks, when regular trading opens at 9:30 a.m. ET.
Venezuelans celebrating Saturday Maduro’s arrest Saturday in Madrid. (Getty)
One can’t say the smaller gains were the product of the U.S. military’s capture of Maduro.
Instead, the Venezuela event was the financial equivalent of a handgrenade tossed randomly into a crowd of mostly bullish investors who have been expecting a big year for stocks in 2026.
To recap quickly, promised U.S. forces bombed Caracas, Venezuela’s capitol, stormed the presidential compound early Saturday and flew off with Maduro and his wife in handcuffs. They are now in custody in Brooklyn awaiting arraignment this week.
President Trump said the United States would now “run” Venezuela, get a stable government organized and then start to get Venezuela giant oil reserves into production again. And that started the questions.
Who would actually run Venezuela? The American position Saturday morning was that Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez was cooperating, The Washington Post reported. Not long after, Rodríguez demanded that Maduro be released. Later, Trump, on the way to playing golf, said, “If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” the Atlantic reported.
Would American troops be on the ground? Not clear. The thinking was they would be stationed off Venezuela’s 1,700-mile-long coast. For how long? Also not clear.
How many personnel were involved in the weekend’s raid? One way or another, maybe 15,000.
Is that enough to run/manage/monitor the country? That is the $64,000 question. Venezuela’s population of maybe 28.5 million, nearly the same as California, is a challenge to serve. (The economy has slumped so badly in recent years that millions fled.) If the country’s civil structure falls apart, the U.S. experience in Iraq suggests the numbers of military and others could grow rapidly. And you have to worry the U.S. could be stuck in Venezuela much longer than now seems to be the case
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This is the elephant fact: Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, some 300 billion barrels in deposits, mostly near the coast. That’s tops globally, ahead even of Saudi Arabia. For many years, Venezuelan oil was tops among crudes exported to the United States, mostly to refineries along the Gulf of Mexico engineered to deal with thick oil laden with Sulphur.
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Who would be in charge of Venezuela’s oil?
Trump suggested Saturday U.S. companies would be invited back in. Most oil resources were controlled by U.S. companies until expropriated in 1976. But Venezuelan oil production has fallen perhaps 70% since 2000, according to Canadian Broadcasting company CBC, even as reserve estimates grew. The causes: soft oil prices, embargos against Venezuelan exports, corruption and mismanagement. Only Chevron Crop. still operates in the country.
Frankly, many, many more questions about this situation, and it may be weeks or months of confusion ahead. The big unknown is if drug cartels will try to disrupt matters or a widespread opposition the U.S. presence in and around the country.
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The market finished lower last week, as worries about job growth and inflation seemed to bother investors.
The S&P 500 ended the week down 1%. The Nasdaq was off1.5%, and the Dow itself was off 0.7%.
But it was a light week of trading, the second in two weeks, because of the holiday season. 2025 was a bullish year, with the S&P 500 up 16.6% .The Nasdaq added 20.4%.
It was the third straight year of gains for the S&P 500, but a report from S&P senior analyst Howard Silverblatt noted the 2026 gain was also lower for a second straight year.
In 2024, the S&P rose 23.2 and 24.2% in 2023.
If you love market trivia, we now must say a classic Santa Clause rally is at risk.
The phenomenon was first named by the late Yale Hirsch of the Stock Traders Almanac and posits that S&P 500 gains over the last five trading days of one year and the first two of the next can lead to stocks rising for the year.
The days to watch in 2025-26 were Dec. 24 through Jan. 5. As of Friday, the S&P 500 was down 1.06% over the first six days of observations. So, the markets needs to perform on Monday.
The phenomenon is accurate about 69% of the time. But the stock market rises about 70% of the time.
The better indicator may be the January Barometer, also devised at the Stock Traders Almanac. which argues an up market in January means an up market for the year. The Almanac says it has been right about 83% since 1950.
It has been wrong now and then, perhaps most famously in 2003.
The S&P 500 fell 2.74% in January 2003 ahead of the Iraq War that toppled Saddam Hussein. But the successful military campaign ignited a huge rally that saw the S&P 500 rise nearly 16% by mid-June. 2003 ended with the index up 26.4%.
U.S. stocks had five years of gains through 2007. Then, the Great Recession extracted a 38% price for all that fun.
In 2025, the index was up 2.75% in January. But that was followed by the April tariff panic. The S&P roared by nearly 42% and ended the year up 16.6%.
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After all that, there are important reports due this week that may also affect markets. But as Kim Wallace of 22V Research wrote in a note over the weekend, Venezuela assures “a lively start” to understanding U.S. economic policy.
Much will be paid to how the market deals with Venezuela especially as Maduro makes court appearances this week.
Also, watch how the bond market behaves. The 10-year Treasury yield, a key component of mortgage rates, was at 4.17% on Friday, up from 4.14% a week earlier. The 30-year mortgage rate is about 6.2%
The big report is the jobs report for December, due Friday morning. The consensus estimates are:
Fewer jobs created: About 54,000 from 64,000 in November.
A higher unemployment rate: 4.7% from 4.6% in in November.
The BLS also will report Wednesday on November job openings, quits and layoffs.
Also on tap: The Institute for Supply Management’s December surveys of manufacturers and service providers will also offer clues about employment in those industries.
At week’s end, the US government will report on October housing starts, while the University of Michigan issues its preliminary January consumer sentiment index.
This story was originally published by TheStreet on Jan 5, 2026, where it first appeared in the Investing section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
