Macro

Trump's sweeping April tariffs (10% plus reciprocal, China to 125%) raised import costs and hammered retailer and auto margins; the May US-China truce gave partial relief, but the tariff drag and September EV-credit repeal weighed all year…

Trump's tariff escalation raised construction and material costs and kept inflation and rates elevated, leaving housing sluggish and office CRE still distressed though bottoming in some markets; a grinding, modestly negative year for owners.

A hostile policy year: RFK Jr. as HHS Secretary rattled vaccine makers and FDA credibility, Trump's most-favored-nation order threatened to slash US drug prices to foreign levels, tariff threats loomed, and UnitedHealth crashed on a DOJ probe and guidance cuts. Broad…

A turbulent year, Trump's tariff escalation (the April 'Liberation Day' crash), threats to Fed independence (firing attempts at Cook and the BLS chief), and a crypto plunge from its peak whipsawed markets, while LA wildfires slammed insurers.

Trump's tariff escalation was double-edged — protecting domestic producers but shocking supply chains and inviting retaliation (April 'Liberation Day' plunge) — yet accelerating reshoring and a roaring data-center power/electrical-equipment cycle drove strong order books…

Meta and Alphabet AI-ad strength kept owners positive, interrupted by the January DeepSeek shock and April's Trump tariff selloff that raised hardware-cost and recession fears. Positive with a spring dip.

PJM's capacity auction for the 2027/28 delivery year cleared at a record $333.44/MW-day price cap — the third record in a row — and procured 145,777 MW, about 6,625 MW (roughly 6.6 GW) below its 20% reserve-margin reliability target, the first such miss in the grid operator's history. A 5,250-MW jump in forecast demand, almost entirely from data centers, drove the shortfall, which could trigger a backstop capacity procurement. Constellation Energy, Vistra and Talen Energy cleared capacity worth about $2.2 billion, $1.3 billion and $1.1 billion in revenue respectively.

Energy sector sentiment is modestly bullish this month, driven primarily by record-high capacity prices in the PJM Interconnection, which underscore tightening supply margins as the grid operator failed to meet its reliability target. This localized stress highlights broader concerns about power adequacy amid rising demand and constrained generation resources, supporting higher valuations for available capacity. The result reinforces confidence in market pricing power despite wider macro uncertainties.

AI dominated but with sharp shocks — the Stargate $500B venture, then DeepSeek's late-January rout wiped a record ~$589B off Nvidia; April's tariff shock hit chipmakers before the AI buildout (Nvidia-OpenAI $100B) drove a strong second-half melt-up.

The late-January DeepSeek shock briefly crashed our AI-power trade on fears demand was overstated, but the data-center buildout and nuclear and gas-turbine supercycle reasserted themselves, keeping owner sentiment strong through tariff-driven volatility.

European rearmament (the EU 'ReArm Europe' plan), the June NATO 5% spending target, and the June Israel-Iran war with US strikes on Iran's nuclear sites drove euphoric demand; China's rare-earth export curbs added an input-supply risk but demand overwhelmed it.

Gold topped $4,000 for the first time on the debasement trade, silver and precious metals surged, and China's sweeping rare-earth export controls handed pricing leverage to Western critical-minerals producers, a euphoric year for hard-asset owners.