Trump 2.0, stocks soar again, gold hits records, AI boom rolls on — Yahoo Finance's 2025 year in review

When the closing doorbell rings connected Wall Street Wednesday afternoon, the S&P 500 (^GSPC) volition clinch its 3rd consecutive twelvemonth of double-digit gains and extremity the twelvemonth adjacent a grounds high. Wall Street is astir unanimously bullish connected the twelvemonth up too.

Powered by the artificial quality commercialized erstwhile again, the 2025 fiscal markets communicative mightiness seem, connected the surface, to beryllium a rerun of what investors lived done successful 2023 and 2024.

Shine a spot of airy connected the subject, however, and we spot the interior workings of the market's way successful 2025 spun an eventful communicative that won't soon beryllium forgotten.

Donald Trump was sworn successful for a 2nd word arsenic president.

The largest institution successful the satellite mislaid astir 20% of its worth successful a azygous day.

The S&P 500 registered its worst week since the COVID clang of 2020, crashing 10% successful conscionable 2 days.

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) deed a grounds precocious — past fell much than 30%.

Gold (GC=F) enjoyed its champion twelvemonth successful 2 generations. The terms of metallic (SI=F) much than doubled.

Investors poured much than $150 cardinal into startups trying to thrust the AI boom, portion the large 4 hyperscalers — Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN), Meta (META), and Microsoft (MSFT) — committed to investing implicit $300 cardinal this twelvemonth successful the opportunity.

Elon Musk's foray into authorities came and went, portion Tesla (TSLA) banal ends the twelvemonth adjacent a grounds precocious and his rocket institution SpaceX (SPAX.PVT) eyes an IPO that would worth the institution astatine $1.5 trillion successful 2026.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang took connected personage presumption successful the concern satellite and beyond.

And Warren Buffett volition caput to Berkshire Hathaway's (BRK-B, BRK-A) offices connected Wednesday for his last time arsenic CEO.

What follows is simply a monthly overview of immoderate of the biggest stories that shaped fiscal markets successful 2025. Some are headlines we whitethorn person forgotten; others are those we ne'er could. Let america cognize what we missed too.

Jan. 20 — Donald Trump is sworn successful for a 2nd word arsenic US president. His archetypal hours successful bureau spot the president motion a bid of enforcement orders, including the constitution of the Department of Government Efficiency, oregon DOGE, which volition bring Elon Musk to Washington, D.C., for the archetypal fewer months of the year.

After topping $100,000 for the archetypal clip successful December 2024, bitcoin hits a grounds precocious supra $109,000 successful the hours earlier Trump's swearing in.

Jan. 21 — Joined by SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, OpenAI main Sam Altman, and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison successful the Oval Office, Trump announces the $500 cardinal "Stargate" task to physique AI infrastructure successful the US.