Most investors knew this year would be different given U.S. President Donald Trump's return to power in the world's biggest economy, but few predicted how wild the ride would get, or the end results.
World stocks (.MIWD00000PUS), opens new tab recovered from April's "Liberation Day" tariffs crash to add another 20% in their sixth year of double-digit gains in the last seven, but look elsewhere and the surprises jump out.
Gold , the ultimate safe port in a storm, is set for its best year since 1979, the U.S. dollar (.DXY), opens new tab is down nearly 10%, oil off almost 17%, yet the junkiest of junk bonds have soared in the debt markets.
The "Magnificent Seven" U.S. tech giants seem to have lost some of their sparkle since artificial intelligence darling Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab became the world's first $5 trillion company in October, and bitcoin has suddenly lost a third of its value too.
DoubleLine fund manager Bill Campbell described 2025 as "the year of change and the year of surprises", with the big moves all "intertwined" in the same seismic issues - the trade war, geopolitics and debt.
"If you were to tell me a priori that Trump was going to come in and use very aggressive trade policies and sequence it the way he has, I would not have expected valuations to be as tight or lofty as they are today," Campbell said.
A near 60% boom in European weapons makers' stocks (.SXPARO), opens new tab has been driven by Trump too, following signals he will scale back Europe's military protection forcing the region - and other NATO members - to rearm.
That's also helped drive the best year for European bank stocks since 1997 (.SX7P), opens new tab, while there's also been the 70% leap in South Korean stocks (.KS11), opens new tab and near-100% returns on defaulted Venezuelan bonds. A trio of U.S. rate cuts, Trump's criticisms of the Federal Reserve and broader debt worries have all impacted bond markets.
Trump's "big, beautiful" spending plans led the 30-year U.S. Treasury yield to surge past 5.1% to its highest since 2007 in May, and though it is now back at 4.8%, the re-expanding gap to short-term rates that bankers dub "term premia" is causing jitters again.
Japan's 30-year yields are back near a record high too. The juxtaposition here is bond market volatility is at a four-year low (.MOVE), opens new tab and local-currency emerging market debt has had its best year since 2009.
AI is all part of the debt mix too. Goldman Sachs estimates the big AI "hyperscalers" have spent nearly $400 billion this year and will spend almost $530 billion next year.
Gold's near 70% surge is its biggest jump since 1979 and precious peers silver and platinum are up an even more dazzling 130%. In crypto, Trump launched a memecoin and gave a presidential pardon to Binance founder Changpeng Zhao. Bitcoin hit an all-time high above $125,000 in October but then crashed to $88,000 and will end the year down around 5.5%.
The dollar's near 10% drop, meanwhile, leaves the euro up 14% , the Swiss franc and Swedish crown 14.5% and 19% higher respectively, while the yen is flat for the year.
