Markets Outlook 2025

Hello my friends, it's Christmas Week and this is my markets outlook for 2025. Now before we continue, let's take a look to see how I did last year, starting with equities. So last year I gave it S&P 500 target of 6,000. Now at that time the S&P was trading at around 4,800 and there were all sorts of people dooming around on the internet. But I insisted that we were going to crash up and looking at where the S&P is trading today, I won't have to say this has been a tremendous call and personally as someone who makes their living off the market, it's my best year ever. So I am happy with this. Now moving on to rates, I thought the 10 year would be around 5% and I got that totally wrong. We are nowhere close to 5%.

你好，我的朋友们，现在是圣诞周，这是我对2025年的市场展望。在我们继续之前，先来看看我去年做得怎么样吧，从股票市场开始。去年，我给标普500指数设定的目标是6,000点。当时，标普500的交易价大约是4,800点，网上有很多人在唱衰。但是，我坚持认为市场会大涨。看看标普500今天的交易情况，我不得不说这是一个惊人的预测。作为一个以市场为生的人，这是我最好的一年。所以我对此感到很满意。接下来谈谈利率，我认为十年期国债收益率会达到5%左右，但这个预测完全错了。我们现在离5%还有很远的距离。

And lastly, I thought gold would be 2,400. We are trading notably above that so I think that was a good call as well. So overall, 2 out of 3, I'll take it, I'm happy with that. And just to be clear, again I offer my perspective and I can be wrong. Alright now moving on to this year. So as a reminder, I think of asset prices, the largest determinant of asset prices to be public policy. Now that could be what the Fed is doing, it could be what the Treasury is doing, it could be what Congress is doing and so forth. So I try to figure out what the public policy will be and then see how that would impact the asset prices through an understanding of how the financial system works. Again, the financial system, very complicated and most importantly is always changing. So if you look at markets, sometimes good news is good news, sometimes good news is bad news. And this stuff, it's not an equation, it will never be an equation, it will always, always be context and judgment.

最后，我原以为黄金价格会达到2400美元。现在的交易价格明显高于这个水平，所以我觉得这也是一个不错的预测。总体来说，三次预测中对了两次，我对这个结果感到满意。为了说明白一点，我只是提供我的看法，我也可能会有偏差。好了，现在让我们来看看今年的情况。需要提醒的是，我认为资产价格的最大决定因素是公共政策。可能是美联储的动向，可能是财政部的政策，也可能是国会的决策，等等。所以，我尝试去理解公共政策会如何，并通过了解金融系统的运作来看看这将如何影响资产价格。再次强调，金融系统非常复杂，而且最重要的是它总是在变化的。所以当你观察市场时，有时候好消息就是好消息，有时候好消息却成了坏消息。这种事，不是一个简单的等式，它永远都需要依赖于背景和判断。

With that being said, let's start with how I think policy will turn out next year. Now of course, the big, big changes next year is that we have the return of President Trump to the White House. Now I've watched President Trump very carefully for for many years and I think of him as the most transformational leader in the world in this generation. Now the policies that President Trump wanted to do are very different from those of his predecessors. Now looking at domestic policy, for example, he basically single-handedly dragged up the issue of illegal immigration and made it one of the cornerstones of his administration. And that's not something that anyone before him talked about. He was basically accepted by both parties before him that we would just have just millions of illegal immigrants entering the country every year and under Biden it seemed like it was just turned to the max. So again, he wanted to change this entire policy. Now looking at foreign policy, again, he also has very different visions of the world.

话虽如此，让我们先讨论一下我对明年政策走向的看法。当然，明年最大的变化就是特朗普总统将重返白宫。我观察特朗普总统已经有很多年了，我认为他是这一代最具变革性的领导人。特朗普总统想要推行的政策和他的前任们有很大不同。以国内政策为例，他几乎凭一己之力将非法移民问题提到了一个全新高度，并把它变成他政府的基石之一。在他之前，没有任何人认真讨论过这个问题。之前的两党政客基本接受了每年有数百万非法移民入境这个现实，而在拜登政府下，这一趋势似乎达到了顶峰。因此，特朗普想要彻底改变这一政策。再看外交政策，他对世界的看法也非常不同。

He wants to have less of a trade deficit. So the US runs a chronic trade deficit with the rest of the world. It's something that we've been doing for decades and it's part of the ideology that establishment parties had that is to say to have free trade. Now President Trump is taking a departure from that perspective and wants to use tariffs as a tool to basically have a more balanced trade relationship or another way to put it is he doesn't like free trade. He wants to reorder the global trade system. The big way that President Trump differs from those before him is his view on foreign policy. Now, I think over the past few decades, both parties have been very active in foreign conflicts, right? Not just Iraq, but also things like Afghanistan and so forth. So these are things that both parties were basically strongly supportive of, but President Trump did not want to do.

他希望减少贸易逆差。美国与世界其他国家长期存在贸易逆差，这是我们几十年来一直做的事情，也是传统政党一贯追求的自由贸易理念的一部分。但特朗普总统与此观点不同，他希望通过使用关税这一工具，来实现更平衡的贸易关系，换句话说，他不喜欢自由贸易。他想要重新安排全球贸易体系。特朗普总统与之前的领导人最大的不同在于他对外交政策的看法。过去几十年里，两党在国外冲突中都非常活跃，例如伊拉克和阿富汗等，这些都是两党基本上都大力支持的事情，但特朗普总统却不想参与。

And of course, makes it a big part of his election platform. What are we doing in all these foreign countries? These people have been fighting each other for thousands of years. And also a core layer to that that has impact on our allies. He's also very unhappy that the United States is playing global policemen, basically paying for the defense for many wealthy countries like Euroland and like Japan, South Korea and so forth. So he has a lot of ideas that are very different from those that came before him. And that's I think what makes it so transformational. He has, he's coming to office the second time with a different perspective. Now, he also brought that same perspective to him, his first term, but admittedly, at that time, he was not very effective.

当然，他把这作为他竞选平台的重要部分。他质疑：“我们在这些外国做什么？这些人已经打了几千年了。”此外，这也直接影响到我们的盟友。他对美国扮演“世界警察”的角色非常不满，认为美国基本上是在为许多富裕国家的国防买单，例如欧洲、日本和韩国等。所以他的很多想法与之前的领导人非常不同，这正是他变革影响力的来源之一。他这次上任时带来了不同的视角。他在第一任期时也持有同样的观点，但那时候的成效不太显著。

But after his first term, he seemed to have reflected a lot as to what happened then. And looking at his picks for cabinet this time around, it seems like he learned that these guys who are part of the political system, they can't be trusted. And as he kind of leans towards outsiders this time, for example, with the elevation of Bobby Kennedy, with Tulsi Gabbard, and of course, a strong relationship with Elon Musk. So it seems like this time around, he is better equipped to carry out his different big policy change. Now, sometimes politicians say one thing on the campaign trail and do another thing in real life, but looking at the issues of wars and immigration and trade, these are things that he has literally been saying for decades. You can find videos of him talking about trade in the 1980s. So this is something that he really believes in. And as someone who will not be running for reelection, this is his last chance to make his mark and fix the system as he perceives it. So I fully expect this to be a very transformational presidency when you have big changes, both domestically and in the global economic order.

但在他的第一个任期之后，他似乎对当时发生的事情进行了许多反思。从他这次选定的内阁成员来看，似乎他意识到这些政治体系中的人不值得信任。因此，这次他倾向于选择局外人，比如提拔了鲍比·肯尼迪，图尔西·加巴德，并与埃隆·马斯克建立了紧密的关系。因此，这一次，他似乎更有能力推行其各项重大政策变革。 当然，政治家有时在竞选时说一套，实际做另一套，但在战争、移民和贸易等问题上，这是他几十年来一直坚持的。他在20世纪80年代就曾谈论过贸易问题，所以这真的是真实的信念。另外，作为一个不会再寻求连任的人，这就是他最后一次留下印记并按照自己的看法修复体系的机会。因此，我完全预计这是一个非常具有变革性的总统任期，会在国内和全球经济秩序上产生重大变化。

Now change is always very, very disruptive, right? Let's say that we do have a change in immigration, we got to have our later market will have to adjust. We do have a change in foreign policy. Now the political and industrial, and military industrial complex will have to adapt. That's in the best case scenario. But the thing is, in the current existing order, there are many people who benefit many interest groups. And so changing a very established system is going to be very, very difficult. Now I remember during his first term, there was an obvious coordination between his political enemies in some aspects of law enforcement where they would basically accuse them of being a Russian agent and the legacy media basically play that nonstop for years and years. And today we know after a very careful inspector general investigation that that was all made up nonsense. And we also know, for example, that elements in the government coordinated with the social media companies in the 2020 election to censor news that was helpful, perceived to be helpful to President Trump. So do you have a lot of people who don't like President Trump and a lot of people who stand loose with his ascension? And they're going to fight to try to make sure that none of this happens. And that's just looking at this domestically, looking abroad.

变革总是非常、非常颠覆性的，对吧？假设我们在移民方面发生了变化，那么我们的劳动力市场就必须进行调整。如果我们在对外政策上发生变化，政治、工业和军工复合体将不得不适应。这是最好的情况。但问题是，在现有的秩序中，很多人和利益集团都从中受益。因此，要改变一个非常成熟的系统是非常困难的。我记得在他第一个任期时，他的政治对手在某些执法方面有明显的协调，基本上指控他是俄罗斯特工，传统媒体不停地播放这个消息，这持续了很多年。经过非常仔细的监察长调查，我们现在知道这完全是无稽之谈。我们也知道，例如，在2020年的选举中，政府的一些部门与社交媒体公司合作，审查那些对特朗普总统有利的新闻。因此，有很多人不喜欢特朗普总统，还有很多人认为他的上台会让他们受到影响。他们会努力阻止这些事情发生。而这只是从国内来看，放眼国外也是如此。

Let's see, you're a big country like China. Well, you kind of like having a big trade surplus with the US. Maybe you don't want to change that. And maybe there are tools that you have to try to make sure that doesn't happen. So there's going to be, I think, a lot of turmoil in at least the first couple of years, but at least next year, for when it comes to policy. Now in the US, we have election cycles, whereas we have the presidential election cycles every four years, but we also have midterm elections. And that's not until another two years. So between January and midterm elections, Trump has basically two years to do the big changes that he wants without having to worry about the electoral consequences. And that tells me that everything will have to be done in a front loaded manner. You got to get hit the ground running. And then later on, as we get closer to election day, we know maybe things will get better.

让我们看看，以你这样的一个大国，比如中国。可以说，你很喜欢与美国保持巨大的贸易顺差。也许你并不想改变这种状况。而且你可能有一些手段来确保这种情况不会发生改变。所以，我认为至少在头几年，特别是明年，政策方面将会有很多动荡。在美国，我们有选举周期，除了每四年的总统选举，还有中期选举。而这中期选举还有两年时间。因此，从一月份到中期选举，特朗普基本上有两年的时间来进行他想要的重大变革，而不必太担心选举的后果。这让我觉得所有事情都必须在前期做完。你需要立即采取行动，然后随着选举日的临近，情况可能会有所改善。

So again, if I have a view that things are going to be disruptive, that has direct implications for markets. And so first off, thinking about what happened during Trump's first term, a whole bunch of tariffs, a whole bunch of trade wars, that was very market negative. And more importantly, it also contributed to the Fed lowering interest rates. Again, I remember in December of 2018, the Fed was all set to high rates a few times in 2019, only to do a 180 and begin cutting in part because of disruptions caused by ongoing trade wars. Now looking at the market, I think the most mispricing from my perspective is the path of Fed policy, thinking that there's just two cuts next year. Now that totally doesn't make sense to me, given the political disruption that we know is coming, and also given by the fact that inflation is really for all intents and purposes, at least for next year, just not a problem anymore.

所以，再次强调一下，如果我认为未来会有破坏性的变化，这将直接影响市场。首先，回顾特朗普第一个任期期间，发生了一系列关税问题和贸易战，这对市场非常不利。更重要的是，这也促使美联储降低了利率。我还记得在2018年12月，美联储本计划在2019年多次加息，但因持续的贸易战所带来的混乱而改变方向，开始降息。现在来看市场，我认为最大的错误预测是关于美联储政策的走向。大家普遍认为明年只会有两次降息，而这在我看来完全不合理，因为我们知道即将到来的政治动荡，再加上通胀至少对明年来说几乎不再是个问题。

Now, Chair Powell has been pretty clear that when you're looking at inflation on a month over a month basis and all that, a lot of it really is just lagging shelter and things like imputed services and so forth. Now he doesn't think it's a problem, and that means that he is going to be inclined to cut the moment that we have some kind of economic disruption, the moment that the unemployment rate is taking higher as it's been for the past year. So that's a very clear, and I think that's a very clear tell to me that the likelihood is that we have a lot more rate cuts next year than the two priced in. Now usually you'd think that would be positive for asset prices, but in the current context, when rate cuts are because of economic concerns, and at the same time, you have foreigners loaded up into the market basically at their highest exposure to US equities they've ever had, that's a recipe for a large outflow of foreign capital, because as the equity market declines, as the rate cuts come in, they're going to be hit with a double whammy of lower equity prices and also a depreciating dollar, and that is something that could easily avalanche into a more severe decline in risk assets.

现在，美联储主席鲍威尔已经很明确地表示，当你在看每月的通胀数据时，很多其实是滞后住房成本和一些推算出来的服务等因素造成的。他不认为这会成为问题，这意味着如果经济出现动荡，比如失业率继续上升，他可能会倾向于降息。因此，这对我来说非常明显，明年降息的可能性很大，可能会超过目前预期的两次降息。通常你会认为这对资产价格是有利的，但在当前情况下，如果降息是因为经济问题，同时外国投资者在美国股市的投资达到历史最高水平，这可能会导致大量外国资本外流。因为随着股市下跌和降息，他们会面临双重打击：股票价格下跌以及美元贬值，而这可能会迅速引发风险资产的大幅度下跌。

So then again, now to be perfectly clear, I think that the policy proposals to slim down the federal government, to not have forever wars, to have secure borders, these are all great things for the future of America, and to laying down the foundation for an ongoing bull market. But again, change is disruptive, so I think next year is going to be a pretty volatile period. So for the S&P 500, I think we will be around 5,500 at the end of next year, and I think now sometime in the year, we're probably going to get notably below 5,500. So I would say that we'd have a steep decline and recover towards 5,500 at the end of next year. Corollary to that, of course, is rates, like I mentioned before, I think we're going to have a lot of rate cuts. So I think the 10 year will be around 4% next year, and I think there will be months where it be notably below 4%. And the trend, I firmly believe, is higher interest rates hitting out through the decade, but nothing goes in a straight line. This would be one of the, I think, disruptions or potential growth scares that we'd have along the way.

那么，为了说明白我的意思，我认为缩减联邦政府规模、杜绝无休止的战争、保障边境安全等政策提案对美国的未来都是非常有利的，并为长期牛市奠定了基础。但不可否认，改变总是带来冲击，所以我认为明年将是一个相当动荡的时期。就标普500指数而言，我预测明年年底会在5500点左右，而在明年某个时间段可能会明显低于5500点。所以，我预计会有一个大幅下跌，然后在明年年底恢复到5500点左右。与此相关的当然就是利率问题，正如我之前提到的，我认为会有大量的降息。因此，我认为明年的10年期国债收益率会在4%左右，并且在某些月份可能会明显低于4%。从长期来看，我坚信利率会在本世纪上涨，但任何事情都不是直线发展的。这可能是我们在这一过程中遇到的干扰或潜在的增长担忧。

And the last thing I want to talk about is gold. Now gold had a really good year this year. I think that continues, and I think gold can go up to 3,000 at the end of next year. I'm thinking that the weaker dollar in ongoing political uncertainty globally is going to put a steady, continued bid in gold, not just by people who are anxious about the future, but if you are a foreign central bank, and you are going to have to be hedging yourselves, because as you go and you negotiate with President Trump about how you're going to remake the global order, they have that huge sword hanging over you of dollar sanctions and your reliance on the dollar. So in order to put yourself in a stronger negotiating position, in order to at least diversify a little bit away from reliance on the dollar, you're going to have to continue to buy gold. And that's especially true for large countries like China, which most recently we see that the PBOC has resumed gold purchases.

关于黄金，我最后要谈的是它。今年，黄金表现得非常不错。我认为这种趋势会持续下去，并且我相信到明年年底，黄金价格可能会上涨到3000美元。我觉得全球政治不确定性增加，加上美元走弱，将会让黄金保持稳定的需求。不仅是对未来感到焦虑的人会购买黄金，外国央行也需要这样做以作对冲。因为在与特朗普总统讨论如何重塑全球秩序时，这些央行会面临美元制裁和对美元依赖的巨大压力。为了在谈判中处于更有利的位置，至少要减少对美元的依赖，它们需要继续购买黄金。对于像中国这样的大国来说，这一点尤为重要。最近，我们看到中国人民银行已经重启了黄金购买。

Alright, so those are my three targets for next year. And I don't think we'll have a recession, but I do think though that growth will slow down notably next year. Again, I think that again, we are in a period of great change, and it's going to make this country much, much better, but changes disruptive. So next year, I think it would be a turbulent time. All right, so that's all I have prepared. Hopefully, again, I can be wrong, and this is just my personal view. Thanks so much for tuning in, guys, and talk to you all soon.

好的，这就是我对明年的三个目标。我认为我们不会经历经济衰退，但我确实认为明年的增长会显著放缓。此时此刻，我觉得我们处于一个巨变的时期，这将让这个国家变得更加美好，但变革是充满冲击的。所以我觉得明年将是一个动荡的时期。好的，这就是我准备的所有内容。希望我错了，这只是我个人的观点。非常感谢大家的收听，很快再聊。