Although Friday marked an improvement in US stocks, volatility increased further last week as the ROI on A.I. spend came back into investor's focus. Rotation from tech to value has been the theme so far of 2026. Meanwhile, European and Japanese stocks again outperformed US stocks. Gold rediscovered its mojo even as Bitcoin continues to plummet. Yields were slightly improved across the UST curve, high yield spreads widened, and the greenback was better bid.

Stocks and precious metals bounce around as more earnings come and go, the Fed holds rates steady as expected, and a new Fed chairman is nominated by Mr Trump.

The last two weeks were rather uneventful, so this is a quick summary of price performance in 2025, and a look ahead to 2026. Are we in a bubble and don't know it?

The FOMC fell in line and served up an expected "hawkish rate cut". However, both Oracle and Broadcom – key players in the A.I. boom – saw their shares sink for different reasons, with the common denominator being A.I. valuation concerns. Yields were higher and gold rallied.

This article contains a summary of full-year 2024 performance of the indices and assets tracked by EMC, plus historical data, too.

This is a guest post about gold, penned by online investment firm BullionVault. Gold has just pierced $2,100/oz, reaching a record high.

Since I write a lot about markets and macroeconomic topics, it is only fair that I talk about my own investment portfolio.

The Street pros provide year-end 2023 projections for stocks and bonds, so why not EMC? Here are my guesstimates and rationales.

2022 has been an abysmal year for most indices and asset classes globally, with the exceptions being oil, gold and the FTSE 100. Now what?