It's been a year, but markets loved it

Worldwide Markets – Episode 659 Show Notes "It's Been a Year… But Markets Loved It" 📆 3 December 2025 🎙️ Host: Simon Brown 🏦 Powered by Standard Bank Global Markets & Shyft — the global money app. 🌍 Opening: A Wild Year That Somehow Ended Beautifully Despite chaos from January to April — tariffs, collapsing markets, surging yields, rand at 19.90 — markets still delivered a stellar year. If you had gone on holiday 1 Jan and checked your portfolio today, you'd think it was a boring year… but Yowza! It was anything but. Reminder: Wall Street ≠ Main Street — markets often move ahead of economic reality. 🤖 AI Chaos in January: DeepSeek Shakes the Market Chinese model DeepSeek stunned the AI world, training for ~$6m vs OpenAI's multi-billion dollar spend. Raised questions: cheaper API access, open-source surge, China's rapid AI emergence. Set the tone for a year of AI leapfrogging between global players. 🇺🇸 The Trump Factor: Tariffs Everywhere Trump sworn in (20 Jan) → tariffs on Mexico & Canada within days. Tore up the post-WW2 geopolitical playbook → raised questions of US reliability going forward. Triggered global uncertainty but markets... shrugged. 🇿🇦 Local Madness: The Three Budget Attempts SA tried three times to get a budget passed. Rand collapses into "Liberation Tariff Day", hits 19.90 → quickly followed by "90 deals in 90 days" promises. Only three months in and the year was already unhinged. 📉 April Market Meltdown… Followed by a Stunning Recovery US 10-yr at 4.5%, US equities down 15%, local markets collapsing, bonds selling off. By December → Nikkei near highs, Europe at highs, JSE powered by gold, US pushed by the Mag 7. Markets looked glorious by year-end, despite everything. 🎙️ Upcoming: Best-Performing JSE Stocks of 2025 Spoiler: Gold miners will dominate. Full breakdown coming next week in the final show of 2025. 🖼️ NanoBanana & Gemini: AI Image Tools Blow Simon's Mind Simon has used DALL·E heavily for two years — but: ❌ slow ❌ bad at text ❌ struggles with edits NanoBanana + Gemini 3: ⚡ insanely fast 🔠 perfect text edits 🎨 clean output Alphabet has: 💰 massive free cash flow 🌐 billions of users 📢 advertising infrastructure → Giving them a potential edge in AI monetisation (for now). 📈 AI Stock Bubble: Is It Popping? Nvidia chart not bearish — holding support around 165–166 and bouncing. Mag 7 vs 200-day moving average: ⬇️ Only Meta is below. Microsoft, Amazon still comfortably above. Conclusion: 🤯 We are in a bubble… but it's not bursting yet. More insights coming in the Power Hour. [caption id="attachment_55081" align="aligncenter" width="849"] Nvidia weekly chart | 01 December 2025[/caption] 🪙 Bitcoin: The Chart Looks Ugly Trump is the most pro-crypto president ever, but BTC isn't reacting positively. Peaked at $126k in October → now around $87k. Breaking support levels: ⚠️ If current zone doesn't hold → sub-$70k likely. Gold vs Bitcoin comparison: 🥇 Gold behaves like a hedge. ₿ Bitcoin remains a speculative asset, not a store of value or inflation hedge. [caption id="attachment_55082" align="aligncenter" width="849"] Bitcoin weekly chart | 02 December 2025[/caption] 🇿🇦 South African GDP: Some Bright Spots Q3 2025 GDP: 📈 +0.5% QoQ 📈 +2.1% YoY 🚧 Gross fixed capital formation +1.6% → first strong rise since Q2 2023. Means: building → roads, dams, solar, infrastructure — very positive. 🏦 Banks Benefit Most Reasons: 👍 GDP uptick ⬆️ Credit upgrades ⬇️ Lower expected inflation ⬇️ Lower rates coming 🟩 Off the grey list Valuations: Price-to-book: 1.0–1.5× Yields: high single digits Winners depend on style: 💸 Deep value → ABSA, Nedbank ⚖️ Balanced → Standard Bank, FNB 🦄 Premium → Capitec (always expensive) 🏢 Shaftesbury (UK REIT): One to Watch Formerly Capital & Counties. Own Covent Garden & key West End locations. Never recovered from Brexit: from £4 → now £1.42. Fundamentals: 💰 Single-digit PE (~8) 📉 Yield 2.7% 📊 Analyst range: £1.48–£2.10 Not a buy yet — but on the watchlist due to prime assets. 🏘️ SA Property: The Easy Money Is Gone SA REITs had: 🚀 Huge 2024 📈 Strong 2025 Many now trade around NAV: Storage, Spear, Vukile → at/near NAV Octodec → still at discount Simon prefers 15% discount to NAV before buying. Markets have closed the gap — valuations now full. If REITs move to 10–15% premiums, Simon will run. 🔮 Next Week: Final Show of 2025 Full list of best and worst JSE performers of the year. Small caps that surprised everyone. Then → back week of 12 Jan with Marc Ashton & Keith McLachlan for the annual predictions episode. 👋 Wrap-Up A shorter show this week, but packed with market insight, AI breakthroughs, Bitcoin trouble, UK property opportunities, and SA's slow-but-positive GDP recovery. As always: 💙 Look after yourself. 🤝 And if you can, look after someone else too. Simon Brown * I hold ungeared positions. All charts by KoyFin | Get 10% off your order