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The US Federal Reserve held its first meeting of 2026 from Tuesday (January 27) to Wednesday (January 28) amid growing tensions between Fed independence and the Trump administration.

The central bank met analysts’ expectations by maintaining the federal funds rate in the 3.5 to 3.75 percent range. After three consecutive cuts at the end of 2025, the Fed decided to hold the line on interest rates. The board welcomed some positive signs of stabilization in the US economy, but has decided to take a “wait-and-see” approach.

The Fed has a dual mandate to promote maximum employment and price stability.

For several months now, its Board of Governors has been split between those concerned with preventing a further slowdown in the US labor market and those fearing the fight against inflation is far from over.

The Fed’s preferred inflation metric, the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index, came in above the 2 percent target, landing at 2.8 percent for November 2025. Meanwhile, Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that the US economy added a modest 50,000 jobs in December 2025 compared to 56,000 jobs added in the previous month.

A weak labor market in the face of entrenched inflation has left the Fed in a pickle.

Lowering rates in turn lowers the cost of borrowing, which can provide businesses with more runway to grow their workforce. However, increasing available money supply by easing access to borrowing can also increase inflation.

The split between doves and hawks that began in late 2025 is still plaguing the Fed into the new year, which promises to see current Chair Jerome Powell replaced with someone more likely to be on board with the much lower rate environment desired by the Trump administration. Two Fed board members cast dissenting votes against holding rates steady, including Governor Stephen Miran and Governor Christopher Waller, who both pushed for a 0.25 percent cut.

“Economic activity has been expanding at a solid pace,” explained the Fed. “Job gains have remained low, and the unemployment rate has shown some signs of stabilization. Inflation remains somewhat elevated.”

The unemployment rate ended 2025 at 4.4 percent. While that’s historically low, data also shows limited job vacancies, and low rates of new hiring. Business Insider reporter Madison Hoff notes that economists are calling this a “low-fire, low-hire environment” due to uncertainty over where the economy is headed.

“It’s likely Fed leaders will stick to the status quo in January, in hopes that steady rates will push inflation closer to their 2% goal,” she wrote. “Affordability is a major concern for American households, as prices rise on housing, groceries, healthcare, and more. Powell has consistently prioritized price stability during his time as chair.”

During a press conference following the rate decision, Powell was careful not to commit to any future rate cut timeline. While the board still sees “some tension between employment and inflation,” that is moderating, and the Fed no longer sees any big risk either of accelerated inflation or a further significant breakdown in the labor market.

There’s also not much chance of a rate hike, either.

“We don’t take things off the table, but it isn’t anybody’s base case right now,” said Powell.

While PCE remains elevated at 2.8 percent, Powell noted that if the impact of tariffs were removed that figure would be hovering just above 2 percent. He explained that the Fed thinks this impact is largely in the rear-view mirror now.

Any day now, US President Donald Trump is expected to announce a replacement for Powell, whose term expires in May 2026. Trump has criticized the Fed and Powell in particular, saying they haven’t lowered rates quickly enough.

On October 27, US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent announced a shortlist of candidates to replace Powell, including Fed governors Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh and BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) executive Rick Rieder.

The Wall Street heavyweight is reportedly the favored candidate at the moment.

“Under Warsh, the Fed would likely signal a preference for a smaller footprint. Despite recent support for near-term rate cuts, his longer-standing views favor a scarce-reserves framework and balance-sheet reduction, which markets would associate with higher term premium and greater yield-curve volatility,” he added.

Trump’s feud with the Fed escalated earlier this month, when the US Department of Justice served the agency with grand jury subpoenas, threatening a criminal indictment over Powell’s testimony to the Senate Banking Committee this past June. In addition to that, last week, the Supreme Court sat for oral arguments over whether Trump can legally remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook from her position over allegations of mortgage fraud.

Although Powell batted away any political questions from reporters during the press conference, he did acknowledge that the Supreme Court case between Trump and Cook is the most “important legal case in the Fed’s 113-year history.’

The gold price spiked to a new high of US$5,361.31 per ounce after the Fed’s decision, although much of that boost likely came from a much weaker US dollar, which is trading at four year lows. Silver traded in a range of US$110 to US$116 per ounce, just below the all-time high of US$117.72 per ounce set on Monday (January 26).

Equities reactions were fairly muted following the rate announcement on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 (INDEXSP:INX) up 0.083 percent to reach 6,972.78. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq-100 (INDEXNASDAQ:NDX) gained 0.31 percent to come in at 26,020.9, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDEXDJX:DJI) was down 0.0064 percent, coming to 49,000.29. It seems Wall Street had already factored in the Fed’s decision to hold.

The next Fed interest rate decision will come on March 18, the second to last Fed meeting before Powell’s term as chair comes to an end. Most analysts expect interest rates to remain in a holding pattern until the second half of 2026.

Securities Disclosure: I, Melissa Pistilli, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.

Seegnal Inc. (TSXV: SEGN) (‘Seegnal‘ or the ‘Corporation‘), a global leader in AI-enhanced prescription intelligence, today announced real-world clinical results demonstrating how medication governance may reduce fall-risk drivers in older adults — a significant clinical and financial challenge across long-term care (LTC), and risk-based care models.

The findings, presented at the CALTCM Summit for Excellence (October 23–25, 2025), provide direct evidence that prescribing decisions — when measured and governed at scale — represent one of the largest untapped levers for cost avoidance and quality improvement in senior care.

A DIRECT HIT ON ONE OF LTC’S MOST EXPENSIVE PROBLEMS

Falls are a significant cause of hospitalization, litigation exposure, staffing strain, and avoidable costs in LTC facilities.

Seegnal analyzed real-world prescribing behavior related to alpha-blocker use in older women, a known contributor to falls, using live clinical workflows rather than retrospective claims data.

The study population included 124,461 female patients aged 70 or older

Results from a three-month deployment:

• 5,088 real prescribing alerts analyzed
• 35% of cases resulted in treatment modification (~1,750 patients)
• High rates of temporary and repeated overrides, signaling systemic risk patterns rather than one-off clinical judgment

The implication for LTC operators is clear: fall risk is being created upstream at the prescription level — and can be mitigated before it becomes an admission, incident report, or lawsuit.

WHY THIS MATTERS FOR PAYERS AND LONG-TERM CARE NETWORKS

Unlike traditional clinical decision support tools that fire alerts and stop there, Seegnal exposes how organizations actually prescribe, where risk accumulates, and where policy gaps exist.

For LTC operators and payers, this enables:

• Reduction in fall-related hospitalizations.
• Lower pharmacy spends and medication burden.
• Improved quality metrics and star ratings.
• Meaningful risk reduction without workflow disruption.
• Actionable data to support value-based contracts.

The results of the study are encouraging as they demonstrate the possibility of cost avoidance + capacity creation driven by real prescribing behavior.

FROM ALERTS TO PRESCRIPTION GOVERNANCE

The CALTCM findings highlight a broader structural issue in senior care: clinicians often recognize medication risk, but organizations often lack the governance layer to turn that insight into sustained, system-wide improvement.

Seegnal aims to fill that gap by acting as the Prescription Operating System for healthcare organizations — enabling them to:

• Track prescribing risk across facilities and populations.
• Distinguish justified clinical exceptions from unsafe patterns.
• Set, monitor, and refine medication policies at scale.
• Align clinical safety with financial accountability.

MANAGEMENT COMMENTARY

‘In long-term care, falls are not just clinical events — they are balance-sheet events,’ said Elad Bibi-Aviv, Chief Executive Officer of Seegnal.

‘What this data shows is that prescribing decisions are one of the few levers organizations can control before costs explode. Seegnal gives LTC operators and payers visibility and control where it actually matters — upstream.’

‘Organizations don’t need more alerts. They need governance, measurement, and proof of value. That is exactly what Seegnal was built to deliver.’

‘Technology is essential, but the real impact on patient outcomes depends on implementation and culture. Seegnal not only integrates seamlessly into workflows but also flags non-rational medication use at the institutional level, enabling management to drive clinical excellence,’ said Dr. Shiri Guy-Alfandary, VP Clinical & Product.

BUILT FOR THE LONG-TERM CARE MARKET: DATA FIRST, FAST VALUE

Seegnal is actively opening Long Term Care engagements through a data-first model:

• Read-only clinical data access (no workflow change).
• Rapid identification of high-cost prescribing patterns.
• Clear clinical and economic KPIs.
• Scalable deployment once value is proven.

This approach aligns directly with the needs of:

• Multi-facility LTC operators.
• Payers.
• Risk-bearing provider networks.

ABOUT THE CLINICAL EVIDENCE

The findings were presented in ‘Reducing Inappropriate Use of Alpha-blockers in Geriatric Patients’ by Dr. Hen Popilski and Dr. Shiri Guy-Alfandary, PharmD, Seegnal, based on real-world prescribing data from routine clinical practice.

The findings and conclusions referenced in this press release are derived from Seegnal’s internal studies. These findings are preliminary in nature, may be based on assumptions and methodologies developed for internal use, and have not been independently audited, verified, or peer‑reviewed. The information is provided solely for general informational purposes.

About Seegnal

Seegnal is a public company that aims to solve one of the top causes of death and injuries in the modern world – Adverse Drug Effects (ADEs). Seegnal’s Clinical Decision Support system introduces a paradigm shift in the approach to this problem by implementing a new elevated Patient-Centric Standard. Seegnal’s SaaS technology exclusively integrates, at the point-of-care, unique patient-specific data such as lab results, vital signs, ECG, smoking status, allergies, food interactions, gender, age, and the effects of many concomitant medications, while reducing the current alert load for clinicians by over 90%. In practice, clinicians using Seegnal eHealth complete their prescription workflow with limited interruption, saving time and fatigue. Patients enjoy more tailored medication and improved safety, leading to better quality of life, with precision alerts reaching up to 98% accuracy. Institutions have reported reductions in admissions, medication consumption, and significant time savings in prescription renewals. Seegnal eHealth is marketing its SaaS-based platform in Israel (where the Ministry of Health recently adopted Seegnal’s patient-specific standard as the new standard in governmental hospitals), the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Poland. The platform is currently a ‘standard of care’ system for over 15,000 clinicians in Israel, used daily for prescribing medications.

See www.seegnal.com.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This press release contains ‘forward-looking information’ or ‘forward-looking statements’ within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. All statements included herein, other than statements of historical fact, including statements included in the ‘About Seegnal’ section of this press release, are forward-looking. Generally, the forward-looking information and forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as ‘anticipate’, ‘believes’, ‘estimates’, ‘expects’, ‘intends’, ‘may’, ‘should’, ‘will’ or variations of such words or similar expressions. More particularly, and without limitation, this press release contains forward-looking information or forward-looking statements concerning the application of Seegnal’s findings and conclusions, and any benefit, implied or express, that may be realized by Seegnal or its clients. These statements, including the findings discussed herein, are based on current assumptions and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Please refer to Seegnal’s public filings with applicable securities regulators for additional information regarding risk factors and other disclosures.

Seegnal cautions that all forward-looking information and forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain, and that actual performance may be affected by a number of material factors, assumptions and expectations, many of which are beyond the control of Seegnal, including expectations and assumptions concerning Seegnal and its products as well as other risks and uncertainties, including those described in Seegnal’s filings available on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca. The reader is cautioned that assumptions used in the preparation of any forward-looking information or forward-looking statements may prove to be incorrect. Events or circumstances may cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted as a result of numerous known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of Seegnal. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking information or forward-looking statements. Such information, although considered reasonable by management at the time of preparation, may prove to be incorrect and actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. Forward-looking information and forward-looking statements contained in this press release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement.

The forward-looking information and forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date of this press release, and Seegnal does not undertake any obligation to update publicly or to revise any of the included forward-looking information or forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as expressly required by law.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

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South Harz Potash Limited (SHP:AU) has announced Swedish Exploration Licence Approvals

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Brightstar Resources (BTR:AU) has announced Trading Halt

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Platinum may be rare, but it is the third most-traded precious metal in the world, behind gold and silver.

The world’s platinum demand varies widely across many sectors. Most notably, platinum metal is used in autocatalysts and jewelry, as well as for medical and industrial purposes. Those interested in investing in platinum would do well to be aware of the many platinum uses. After all, by knowing which industries require platinum, it’s possible to understand supply and demand dynamics, and to be aware of how the precious metal’s price may move in the future.

With that in mind, here’s a list of the four main platinum uses. Scroll on to learn more about platinum’s key applications.

Securities Disclosure: I, Melissa Pistilli, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.

Rapid Critical Metals (RCM:AU) has announced Commencement of Scoping Study for NSW Silver Projects

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Graphite stocks and prices have experienced volatility in recent years recently due to bottlenecks in demand for electric vehicles, as graphite is used to create lithium-ion battery anode materials.

One major factor experts are watching is the trade war between China and the US.

China introduced export restrictions on certain graphite products on December 1, 2023, making it a requirement for Chinese exporters to apply for special permits to ship the material to global markets. In July 2025, the Trump administration in the US announced it would raise tariffs on battery-grade graphite imports from China to 93.5 percent.

Another trend that shaped the graphite market in 2025 was the increasing substitution of natural graphite with synthetic graphite in battery anode production; this comes in response to Chinese exports restrictions and US tariffs on natural graphite.

This led to much lower prices for natural graphite, and against that backdrop, many Canadian graphite stocks trended down. However, several graphite-focused companies have seen strong performances in the past year.

Below is a look at the year’s best-performing graphite stocks on the TSX, TSXV and CSE. Data was obtained on January 21, 2026, using TradingView’s stock screener, and all companies listed had market caps above C$10 million at that time. Read on to learn more about the operations and news of the top Canadian graphite companies.

Securities Disclosure: I, Melissa Pistilli, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.

Securities Disclosure: I, Dean Belder, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.

Aurum Resources (AUE:AU) has announced Further high-grade intercepts at BMT3 in Boundiali

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Peter Krauth, editor of Silver Stock Investor and Silver Advisor, shares his thoughts on what’s next for silver after its run into triple digits.

‘I do think that we’re going to end the year higher than where we are now. Perhaps to the tune of 20, 30, perhaps even 40 percent higher,’ he said.

Securities Disclosure: I, Charlotte McLeod, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.