Weekly Commentary: 2025 Year In Review

2026-01-17 03:45:27 ET

With 2026 raging, let's get a "year in review" wrapped up and quickly move on. It was a year for the history books, and I will not attempt a comprehensive review of developments. At the end of a historic super cycle, it's either Bubble bursts or Bubble excess that goes to even crazier extremes. Crazier extremes owned 2025 - at home and abroad. The aged global government finance Bubble reached a new pinnacle.

It was a year of "resilience." After a negative (0.6%) Q1 print, GDP growth had surged to 4.3% by Q3 - with the Atlanta Fed GDPNow forecast currently registering a blistering 5.3% for Q4. Labor markets were similarly resilient. After beginning the year at 217,000, weekly initial unemployment claims hit 250,000 during June and spiked to 264,000 in September. But claims were back down to a historically low 200,000 by the end of the year. The unemployment rate increased a modest three-tenths in 2025 to 4.4%. This compares to a 5.7% average over the period 1990 through 2025.

A Credit system anchored by a $1.8 TN federal deficit and unprecedented speculative leverage can work wonders....

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