Stocks Slip on Final Day of 2025, Silver Tumbles: Markets Wrap

(Bloomberg) -- Equities were a touch weaker on the final trading day of 2025, trimming some of the gains that have powered global stocks to a third consecutive annual advance.

Stock-index futures for the US fell 0.2%, signaling more losses for the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100. Asian equities — primed for their best year since 2017 — edged lower in relatively light trading, as a number of markets are already shut for the year. Silver plunged 6%.

The MSCI All Country World Index — one of the broadest measures of the equity market — has still risen 21% this year, supported by Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts and enthusiasm over artificial intelligence.

Even after Wednesday’s losses, silver outperformed most assets, surging 147%. Precious metals have had a bumper year, with gold and silver both set for their best annual jump since 1979. Bitcoin, however, was poised for its second annual decline in four years. A gauge of the dollar slumped 8.1% this year, the biggest drop since 2017.

Equities climbed to all-time highs in 2025 as optimism over economic growth, corporate earnings and a looser monetary policy helped markets rebound from an April slump that was triggered by President Donald Trump’s tariffs. Still, heading into 2026, investors face elevated valuations and growing divisions among US policymakers over the scope for further easing, as evidenced by the minutes of the Fed’s December meeting published Tuesday. 

“The overriding theme is that global stock indices have lost momentum into year-end,” Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB, wrote in a note. “There are plenty of reasons for this, including decent returns for 2025, and investors waiting to make big trading decisions until after the Christmas break.”

This year, investors bet big on shifting politics, bloated balance sheets and fragile narratives, fueling outsized stock rallies, crowded yield trades, and crypto strategies built on leverage, hope, and not much else. 

Trump’s White House return quickly sank — and then revived — financial markets across the world, lit a fire under European defense stocks, and emboldened speculators fanning mania after mania. Some positions paid off spectacularly. Others misfired when momentum reversed, financing dried up or leverage cut the wrong way.

What Bloomberg strategists say...

As the year draws to a close, market dynamics are shaped by division rather than direction, tempering risk appetite at the margin even as underlying resilience maintains a broadly supportive backdrop for US equities.

—Brendan Fagan, Macro Strategist, Markets Live. For the full analysis, click here.

Elsewhere, oil headed for its deepest annual loss since the pandemic in 2020, with prices undermined by concerns about a punishing surplus that’s set to dominate market sentiment and trading into the new year.

In Asia, currency moves have gained a lot of attention recently, with the onshore yuan gaining past the widely watched 7-per-dollar level on Tuesday for the first time since 2023. On Wednesday, President Xi Jinping said China hit its main economic goals this year.

Investors have at least one reason to be optimistic heading into the new year. MSCI’s gauge for global stocks has climbed an average 1.4% in January over the last 10 years and advanced in six of those instances, data compiled by Bloomberg showed.

“Wall Street is rounding out the year in a subdued fashion, capping a good year for stocks, albeit one that included a nervous moment or two,” Kyle Rodda, a senior analyst at Capital.com, wrote in a note. “The markets are pricing in a pretty much close to perfect set of circumstances going into next year.”

Corporate Highlights:

• Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. plans to once again reject a takeover bid from Paramount Skydance Corp. after the rival media company amended the terms of its offer, according to people familiar with the company’s thinking.
• Tesla Inc. took the unusual step of publishing a series of sales estimates indicating the outlook for its vehicle deliveries may be lower than many investors were expecting.
• Air China Ltd. will buy 60 Airbus SE aircraft in a long-anticipated transaction worth $9.53 billion.

Some of the main moves in markets: 

Stocks

• S&P 500 futures fell 0.2% as of 6:53 a.m. London time
• Nasdaq 100 futures fell 0.3%
• The MSCI Asia Pacific Index was little changed
• The Shanghai Composite rose 0.1%

Currencies

• The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed
• The euro was little changed at $1.1738
• The Japanese yen fell 0.1% to 156.61 per dollar
• The offshore yuan rose 0.1% to 6.9847 per dollar
• The British pound was little changed at $1.3458

Cryptocurrencies

• Bitcoin rose 0.3% to $88,407.99
• Ether rose 0.3% to $2,973.76

Bonds

• Australia’s 10-year yield was little changed at 4.74%

Commodities

• Spot gold fell 0.4% to $4,324.13 an ounce
• West Texas Intermediate crude fell 0.1% to $57.89 a barrel

This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.

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