Macro

Housing stayed frozen as mortgage rates lingered at 6.5-7.5% and sales hit multi-decade lows, while office CRE distress deepened against a wall of maturities; home values held on lock-in scarcity, and the Fed's September cut brought modest hope.

A soft-landing year with resilient spending and September Fed cuts, but a bifurcated consumer (strained low-end, softening restaurant traffic) and EV-demand disappointment (BYD outselling Tesla, Hertz dumping EVs) capped the mood; October ports strike briefly snagged goods flow.

A euphoric turnaround as the AI data-center load boom repriced us as power plays for the first real demand growth in twenty years, Fed rate cuts revived the yield bid, and nuclear-restart and SMR deals ignited a generation renaissance.

A strong bull market, spot-Bitcoin-ETF approvals (an asset-gathering bonanza), reviving M&A and IPOs, Fed rate cuts, and the private-credit boom made it an excellent year, capped by a post-election bank rally on deregulation hopes and Bitcoin topping $100,000.

Reshoring, infrastructure spending and a booming data-center/electrification capex cycle (power and electrical equipment) kept order books strong; Boeing's quality crisis and the Key Bridge collapse were specific drags…

Change Healthcare cyberattack disrupts payments

Gold broke out to a string of record highs on central-bank buying and the Fed's rate-cut cycle, copper spiked to a record in May on electrification demand, and precious-metals owners enjoyed a strong, appreciating year.

Oil drifted soft and range-bound near $80, but exploding AI data-center power demand, 16-year-high uranium prices, and a wave of hyperscaler nuclear deals turned the electricity side of energy into a powerful new profit engine, lifting owners' mood despite lackluster crude.

Meta's first-ever dividend, stock surges; AI-driven ad targeting

Nvidia's stock surged 16% following a massive earnings beat, adding over $250B in market value and driving record highs in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq. The AI chip leader posted $22B in revenue and 265% annual growth, fueled by demand for its datacenter GPUs. The rally underscored Nvidia's outsized influence on broader market momentum and investor sentiment.

The tech sector is sharply positive this month, driven primarily by Nvidia’s record earnings beat that added $277 billion in market value, underscoring sustained investor confidence in AI-driven growth. This performance has lifted sentiment across semiconductor and broader tech equities, reinforcing expectations for continued dominance in high-performance computing and data center infrastructure.

Early-year uncertainty from the Congressional Ukraine-aid stall gave way to April's $61B supplemental, and Iran-Israel strikes, the Israel-Hezbollah war and China's Taiwan drills sustained record global demand;