The 2025 market story in four charts

Important information - the value of investments and the income from them can go down as well as up, so you may get back less than you invest.

2025 was a great year for stock markets around the world. Emerging markets, Asia Pacific, Europe, North America and the UK all achieved double-digit gains.

The regional picture has shifted, however. After years of outperformance, the US has lagged behind other countries since January. Investors are nervous about the S&P 500’s high valuation and its extreme skew towards the technology sector. In contrast, emerging markets have roared back to life, helped by strong growth forecasts, a weaker dollar, and efforts to diversify away from the US.¬ They have climbed by almost a quarter since January.

At the opposite end of the spectrum is Bitcoin, the world’s most important cryptocurrency. After two years of spectacular returns, Bitcoin has taken a tumble. The sell-off has been blamed on everything from Japanese interest rates to Big Tech’s spending plans.

Whichever theory is correct, the fall shows how volatile cryptocurrencies can be. Since we started tracking Bitcoin in 2019, it has either topped our performance chart or languished at the bottom.

In fact, the whole table underlines the importance of diversification. Even among more traditional assets, performance varies dramatically from year to year. Holding a range of investments should give you a smoother ride over time.

Chart 2: …but silver and gold did even better 

It is impossible to reflect on 2025 without mentioning gold. The yellow metal has hit 50 all-time highs this year and has surged ahead of global stocks^1.

Demand for bullion has been strong for a while now. Central banks have been stocking up for several years, in a concerted move away from the US dollar. In 2025, however, retail investors also piled in, drawn to gold’s defensive qualities and its seemingly unstoppable rise.

Gold tends to do well when other assets do badly, which makes it a good diversifier. Something odd happened this year, however, as equities and bullion rose in lockstep.

 The Bank of International Settlements - which serves as the bank to central banks - said this is the first time in 50 years that both asset classes have entered ‘explosive territory’ at the same time2.  Some commentators have blamed this on a retail investor frenzy and said both assets could be in bubble territory.

Others are more bullish, though. ‘In a world where shocks and surprises are increasingly the norm, gold’s capacity to provide diversification and downside protection remains as relevant as ever,’ the World Gold Council concluded in its outlook for 2026³.

\Amid all the bullion chat, it is easy to forget its cheaper cousin: silver. Like gold, silver is viewed as a haven asset. However, it also benefits from industrial demand, and liquidity issues can drive up the price too. These factors combined to push silver higher than gold in 2025.

There are various ways to invest in precious metals, but one of the most direct is to buy exchange traded funds (ETFs), which are listed on stock exchanges and bought and sold like shares. The best will mirror movements in the gold or silver price very closely and do so for a low charge.

Another way to gain exposure to this asset class is by investing in the companies that extract, produce or distribute metals. For example, the Ninety One Global Gold Fund invests predominantly in gold-mining companies listed around the world.

Meanwhile, Jupiter Gold and Silver holds a mix of physical metals and mining equities.

• Our invest in gold guide explains the options.

Chart 3: AI has dominated conversations

2025’s uneasy mixture of hope and fear has various causes, but one mega-trend stands out: artificial intelligence. AI cropped up in over 2,300 US earnings calls this year, with everyone from Nvidia to Walt Disney discussing its potential⁴.

It has been hailed as a transformative technology, that could reshape both the economy and our daily lives. According to some, it is the next industrial revolution - but faster. This has fuelled huge bullishness in some quarters and has driven up the price of many technology stocks.

But there are concerns that investors are getting overexcited. Some people think AI will be a slow burn, rather than an overnight success story. There is also a big question about when/ if AI will improve company profits and whether it will be worth all the investment. Investment is certainly ratcheting up: capital expenditure among ‘hyperscalers’ like Google and Microsoft is on track to treble in the three years to 2026 to well over $400bn⁵. For context, this is about eight times more than the annual revenue of the UK’s biggest company, AstraZeneca⁶.

• Read: Fund ideas for investors worried about a stock market fall

Chart 4: US tariffs are at their highest level since the Second World War

If AI has hogged the limelight in 2025, tariffs have provided the backing track. Donald Trump was inaugurated as president on 20 January and, just a few days later, tariffs were slapped on Canada, Mexico and China⁷. Various rows ensued, culminating in ‘Liberation Day’ on 2 April, when President Trump announced tariffs on almost every country in the world. Stock markets took fright.

Many of these levies were then paused, paused again, reinstated, and renegotiated via a flurry of trade deals. A tariff timeline created by a US think tank has more than 100 entries since January⁸. Amid all the back-and-forth, however, stock markets regained their cool.

The US now has the highest average tariff rate since 1935: 14.4%. This is a ‘post-substitution’ figure, according to the Yale Budget Lab, meaning it accounts for changes to imports caused by the tariffs. Clothing, products with high metal content like electrical equipment and computers, and motor vehicles have been worst hit⁹.

The impact of the tariffs on investors has been less extreme than many feared, however.  Emerging markets, for instance, were expected to suffer as they depend heavily on exports. But - as our first chart shows - they have been going from strength to strength.

‘The potential for a sharp, tariff driven downturn has faded,’ Fidelity analysts concluded in their outlook for 2026 ¹⁰. How they will affect economies longer term remains to be seen, however.

Source:

¹World Gold Outlook
²BIS Quarterly Review, December 2025
³World Gold Outlook
⁴FactSet
⁵Schroders Equity Lens, December 2025
⁶AstraZeneca, Full Year and Q4 2024 results
^7,8Trump's trade war timeline 2.0
⁹State of U.S. Tariffs, November 2025
¹⁰Outlook 2026, Fidelity

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