Markets Weekly December 13, 2025

Hello my friends, today is December 13th and this is markets weekly. So this past week was a pretty exciting week mostly because of the FOMC we've already spoken about, but we did have some commotion in the equity markets. Now looking at the major indexes, we are only a stone throw from all time highs, but we did have a pretty ugly Friday. Now the proximate cause of that seems to be some waning in the enthusiasm for the AI bubble. As we've spoken many times before, it does seem like a bubble. Now we had Broadcom announced pretty good earnings, but then sold off aggressively. We had Oracle also. I'll say things that about potential delays in their data centers, but also it was because there was just shortages in materials suggesting strong demand for AI data centers, but in any case the market didn't like that. So that seemed to have driven a lot of the AI names lower.

你好，朋友们，今天是12月13日，这是本周的市场周报。过去这一周非常精彩，主要是因为我们之前提到的美联储联邦公开市场委员会（FOMC）的会议，但股市也出现了一些波动。现在来看主要指数，我们距离历史新高仅一步之遥，不过周五收盘时表现不佳。直接原因似乎是对人工智能泡沫的热情开始减退。正如我们多次讨论过的，这确实看起来像一个泡沫。博通公司公布了不错的收益，但股价却大幅下跌。甲骨文公司也出现类似情况。我会说他们的数据中心可能会有所延迟，而且材料短缺表明对人工智能数据中心的需求强劲，但无论如何市场对此并不买账。这似乎导致了许多AI相关公司的股价下跌。

However though, also note that on an eco-weighted basis, the S&P 500 actually made new all time highs. So what seems to be happening is that whereas some sectors in tech are deflating, it seemed like a rotation into other sectors. So in any case, again, when we talk about bubbles historically speaking, we always have violent corrections, always hard to know when it's over. And of course, as we've said many times before, it's just not the season to be bearish. But what really stood out to me the past week was of course gold and silver. Gold just is so-and-throw from all time highs and silver, just absolutely going parabolic. So today let's talk about what could be driving the precious metals and also some interesting things that are happening in Japan where it looks like the BIOJ's purchases of ETFs way back then is now actually being very, very profitable.

然而，请注意，从生态加权的角度来看，标普500指数实际上创下了历史新高。这意味着一些科技行业的泡沫在缩小，而资金似乎正在转向其他行业。无论如何，当我们从历史角度谈论泡沫时，总是会出现剧烈的调整，而何时结束总是很难判断。当然，正如我们之前多次提到的，现在不是看空市场的时候。但让我在过去一周印象深刻的是黄金和白银。黄金在历史高位附近震荡，而白银走势则急剧上升。所以今天我们来讨论一下是什么推动了贵金属的上升，以及日本的一些有趣现象，比如日本央行过往购买的ETF现在实际上变得非常有利润。

Right, starting with the precious metals. So as we can see from silver, it looks like it's just doing super well. If you're a technical analyst or anything like that, it's obviously going parabolic. Gold doesn't look too bad either. Now people always have these various stories as to what drives gold and what drives silver because everyone buys and sells them for different reasons. So today let's talk about it from the perspective of the dollar strength and from geopolitics because both of them are really heating up. Now if you look at the news the past week, some of the very interesting things that are happening is that it looks like the US is on the cuss of taking over Venezuela. All the chess pieces are moving into place. Again, last week we talked about Trump's new national security strategy where he added a Trump corollary that is to say that the Americas will belong to the US.

好的，我们先谈谈贵金属。正如我们从白银的表现中看到的，它似乎表现得非常好。如果你是技术分析师或类似专业的人士，很明显它正在呈现抛物线式的上涨趋势。而黄金的表现也不错。人们总是有各种不同的说法，关于是什么推动了黄金和白银的市场，因为每个人买卖它们的原因都不同。那么今天我们从美元的强势和地缘政治的角度来讨论这个话题，因为这两个因素都在迅速升温。如果看看过去一周的新闻，有一些非常有趣的事情正在发生，看起来美国似乎即将接管委内瑞拉，所有的棋子都在各就各位。此外，上周我们还讨论了特朗普的新国家安全策略，他在其中加入了一个特朗普推论，即美洲将属于美国。

Now a lot of people who are specialized in this tell me that the national security strategy is not so much an aspirational document in so far as it is about codifying existing practice. So this is something that they are already doing. Now there's just kind of formalizing it. Now over the past month we've had the US, you know, just casually bombs and Venezuelan drug boats, Call of Duty style. And now they're moving more and more assets. And this past week they seize Venezuelan oil tanker. So escalation there. And that also has an additional effect in that Venezuelan oil being oftentimes sent to Cuba, which of course is not friends with the US. So by seizing that oil tanker, the US is not just starving the Maduro regime for revenues but also weakening its ally in Havana.

现在，很多在这一领域有专长的人告诉我，国家安全战略与其说是一个理想化的文件，不如说是对现有做法的正式记录。这意味着他们其实已经在这样做了，只是现在将其正式化。过去一个月，美国就像“使命召唤”游戏一样，随意轰炸了委内瑞拉的毒品船，现在他们还在调动越来越多的资源。而在过去一周，他们扣押了委内瑞拉的油轮。这种行为导致紧张局势升级。此外，这也产生了附加影响，因为委内瑞拉的石油经常被运往古巴，而古巴与美国并不友好。因此，通过扣押这艘油轮，美国不仅让马杜罗政权收入减少，还削弱了其在哈瓦那的盟友。

Now in addition to seizing an oil tanker, we also have the US military with the assistance of the US military, the smuggling out of a major Venezuelan opposition leader to Norway to receive her Nobel Prize, Nobel Peace Prize. So regime change 101 after you topple the current regime, you have to have your own, your own person ready to take over, right? And it looks like Machado is this kind of person. And of course the international community giving her a Nobel Peace Prize further burnishes her credentials to at least to at least grinder international support, right? So you give these, I guess these titles, it's like giving someone a PhD and magically some portion of the population will follow you as the expert. So you got your opposition leader waiting the weens, you gave her an extra credential.

现在，除了扣押一艘油轮之外，我们还与美军协作，将一位主要的委内瑞拉反对派领袖秘密送往挪威领取她的诺贝尔奖，诺贝尔和平奖。这就像是“政权更迭101”，推翻现政府之后，你必须让自己的人做好接管的准备，对吧？看起来马查多就是这样一个人。当然，国际社会为她颁发诺贝尔和平奖进一步提升了她的资历，至少可以赢得国际支持，对吧？就好比授予某人博士学位，这些头衔就像是神奇地让一部分人群将你视为某个领域的专家。所以你已经有了一个在幕后等待的反对派领袖，并且还给了她额外的资历。

And now you have military assets just waiting to further starve the regime. Looks like there's also ongoing discussions to see how Maduro could potentially just peacefully leave. Sounds like he's looking for some guarantees and maybe a payout. We'll see how that turns out. But it looks like yes, the US is imminently about to do something with Venezuela. And that of course suggests that Cuba would also be impacted as well. So these brewing geopolitical tensions.

现在你已经有军事力量准备好进一步削弱这个政权的资源了。好像还有讨论正在进行中，看看马杜罗是否有可能平和地卸任。他似乎在寻求一些保证，也许还有一笔遣散费。我们拭目以待结果会如何。但看起来是的，美国很快就会对委内瑞拉采取行动。这当然也意味着古巴将受到影响。所以这些地缘政治紧张局势正在酝酿中。

Secondly, on the geopolitical tension front, you have the European Union poised to do something extra with the frozen Russian reserves. So remember after the Russia-Ukraine war started, the international community immediately froze Russian sovereign assets. Now Russia had been aware of this potential for some time and so they prepared by moving a lot of their foreign reserves out of dollars into gold. But they still kept a sizable amount in euros, about 100 billion euros. It seemed at that moment they felt that maybe Europe was a safer place than the US, but that was a miscalculation.

其次，在地缘政治紧张局势方面，欧盟准备对被冻结的俄罗斯储备采取额外措施。大家还记得，俄乌战争爆发后，国际社会立即冻结了俄罗斯的国家资产。俄罗斯早已意识到这种可能性，因此他们将大量外汇储备从美元转移到了黄金。但他们仍然在欧元中保留了大约1000亿欧元。当时他们可能认为欧洲比美国安全，但这显然是个误判。

So the euros also froze Russian reserves. So they froze it though, but they did not confiscate it outright. Now as the war continues and the US is withdrawing their financial support from Ukraine and Europe has some fiscal troubles and is always difficult to act. Fiscally they are not just one country but many, many, many, many individual countries. Sometimes just focal to agree on something. So rather than put their own money up to support Ukraine, they thought maybe it makes more sense to actually find a way to take those Russian reserves and use them to finance the war on behalf of Ukraine. And it looks like they're going to do that.

欧元区也冻结了俄罗斯的储备。不过，他们只是冻结了，而没有直接没收。随着战争的持续，美国逐渐撤回对乌克兰的财政支持，而欧洲本身也面临一些财政问题，并且由于欧洲包含多个国家，财政行动常常比较困难，因为这些国家有时难以就某些事情达成一致。因此，他们考虑在不动用自己资金支持乌克兰的情况下，想办法利用俄罗斯的这些储备来为乌克兰的战争提供资金。看起来他们即将这么做。

So if you recall from 2022, after the international community froze those Russian reserves, we kind of set off a very strong bull run for gold. And the thinking was, especially if you are a sovereign actor, that if you are a country with a lot of dollars that may not be friends with the West, you may not feel safe holding all your foreign reserves in euros or in dollars. So you have to diversify a little bit. And the obvious diversifier of course is gold, which you can hold in your own vaults, has no counterparty risk. And not nearly as liquid as treasuries or something like that, but still I really think it's relatively large markets generally a lot larger than crypto or something like that, which no one will ever put foreign reserves in.

所以，如果你还记得2022年，在国际社会冻结了俄罗斯的储备之后，我们引发了一波黄金的强劲牛市。对此的思考是，尤其是如果你是一个主权国家，而你又持有大量美元且不太与西方友好的话，你可能会觉得把所有外汇储备放在欧元或美元中并不安全。因此，你需要进行一些多元化投资。而最明显的多元化工具当然是黄金，因为它可以储存在自己的金库中，没有对手方风险。虽然它的流动性不如国债等资产，但市场规模相对较大，远比加密货币大，而没有人会将外汇储备放在加密货币中。

So we saw a big bull run in gold. And now you see, you're seeing maybe an additional impetus for that diversification trade because let's say just hypothetically, don't know if this will ever happen. Let's say if there's some military conflict between China and Taiwan and of course China holds a whole lot of dollars. It would be really, really unfortunate for China if those dollars or euros or whatever were frozen and then given to Taiwan for their defense. So again, that seems to further add the impetus to sovereigns to have to diversify a little bit out of the dollar and into gold. So again, two big geopolitical catalysts that seem to be pushing pressure metals higher.

我们看到金价出现了一次大的上涨。现在或许又出现了一些新的动力来推动多元化交易。假设，这只是个假设，我不知道这会不会发生。如果中美发生军事冲突，而中国又持有大量美元资产，那么对中国来说就非常不利，因为这些美元或欧元等资产可能会被冻结，然后转给台湾用于防卫。因此，这似乎进一步推动了国家主权需要从美元多元化到黄金的动力。所以，这两个重大的地缘政治事件似乎正推动贵金属价格上涨。

Now the second thing that's happening is just more traditional macro. So it looks like the dollar is set to further weaken. If you look at a chart of the Dixie, it did have kind of a rebound with the dollar strength in a bit, but then now it seems to be trading lower and there are good reasons for that. Now as we talked about in our Fed episode, it looks like the US is poised to cut rates further next year. And depending on how the politics shake out, maybe we do have a more Trump influence Fed that ends up with lower interest rates than what the market is even pricing.

现在正在发生的第二件事是更传统的宏观经济变化。看起来美元将进一步走弱。如果你查看美元指数（Dixie）的走势图，可以看到美元一度反弹走强，但现在似乎开始走低，而且这样认为是有充分理由的。正如我们在美联储专题中讨论的那样，美国明年可能会进一步降息。而且，视政治局势的发展而定，我们可能会有一个更受特朗普影响的美联储，最终导致的利率低于市场预期。

The market is pricing in that the Fed will cut to about 3%. Some of the Trump appointees suggest that it will make some more sense to cut to maybe two and a half. So that would be about 100 basis points in cuts next year. And data will obviously play an important role as well. But if you look at other major countries, major regions, say Australia or Canada or the European Union, it looks like they're done with their cutting cycle. In fact, there's actually some noise that Europe may think about hiking rates next year.

市场预计美联储将降息至大约3%。一些由特朗普任命的官员建议，或许降至2.5%会更合理。因此，明年可能会有大约100个基点的降息。同时，数据显然也将起到重要作用。然而，如果观察其他主要国家或地区，比如澳大利亚、加拿大或欧盟，它们似乎已经结束了降息周期。事实上，欧洲甚至有可能考虑明年加息的声音。

So if everyone else is done cutting or maybe even hiking next year, and the US could potentially cut more than the market expects, then that's a recipe for further dollar weakness. And so if that's the case, that's an additional tailwind for the precious metals. Now I talk about silver and gold together because I think of silver as just a higher beta version of gold. And they are different. They do have different fundamentals.

因此，如果其他国家在明年可能都已经停止降息甚至开始加息，而美国的降息幅度可能会超出市场预期，那么这将导致美元进一步走软。如果情况真是如此，那对贵金属来说将是一个额外的利好因素。现在，我一起讨论白银和黄金，因为我认为白银就是黄金的高贝塔版本。它们确实有所不同，它们的基本面也不尽相同。

People who look into silver will talk about how silver is also an industrial metal. For example, widely used in things like solar panels. And so to the extent you have increased demand for clean energy, that could be an additional tailwind for silver. But I think from a market perspective, people just buy them based on momentum and perceive things like geopolitical risk and dollar strength and so forth. So I lump them together. So gold had a tremendous year this year. And right now it looks like it has more positive news that could propel it. So let's see what happens in the next year.

研究白银的人会谈到白银也是一种工业金属。例如，它广泛用于太阳能电池板等产品。因此，随着对清洁能源需求的增加，这可能成为白银的一个额外推动力。但我觉得从市场的角度来看，人们购买白银主要还是基于市场动能和对地缘政治风险、美元强势等因素的看法。所以我把它们放在一起考虑。今年黄金的表现非常出色。目前看来，它还有更多积极因素可能推动其发展。让我们看看明年会发生什么。

Now the second thing I want to talk about is something that I thought was super interesting. So say about a decade ago, Japan of course suffering from deflation, disinflation was really desperate to stimulate the economy. Now we all know that they are one of the countries that experimented with all sorts of things, right? They are a pioneer in quantitative easing, did it to a huge extent, pioneer in things like yield curve control, and also a pioneer in just buying the equity market.

现在，我想谈的第二件事是我觉得非常有趣的一件事情。大约十年前，日本因为通货紧缩和低通胀问题，非常急切地想要刺激经济。我们都知道，日本是很多经济实验的先驱，对吧？他们率先大规模实施量化宽松政策，率先采取收益率曲线控制措施，还率先直接购买股票市场。

So the Bank of Japan in an attempt to stimulate the market began to buy equities through ETFs and also reads to a large extent about a decade ago. Now the interesting thing about that was that initially it did boost the equity market, you know, kind of rekindled animal spirits. After all, the central bank is buying. How could you be bearish? But the strange thing was that that actually peered out. And so even with the central bank buying, it was not able to kind of set off a big equity bull market.

大约十年前，日本银行为了刺激市场，开始通过交易所交易基金（ETF）购买股票。在最初的阶段，这一举措确实提升了股市，重新点燃了市场的投资热情。毕竟，中央银行都在买入，怎么能看空呢？然而，奇怪的是，这种效果逐渐消退。即使中央银行在买入股票，也没能引发一场大的牛市。

However, fast forward to today, maybe in conjunction with fiscal stimulus, we definitely see animal spirits roaring in the Nikkei, which has been doing super, super well, right? So you have a lot of positive things happening in Japan. You have fiscal stimulus and you have, of course, what appears to be sustainable inflation above 2%, maybe their virtuous wage price spiral as they would like to call it.

然而，快进到今天，也许是因为财政刺激的共同作用，我们确实看到日经指数表现非常出色，可以说是市场情绪高涨。因此，日本现在有很多积极的事情在发生。除了财政刺激之外，日本还出现了看似可持续的超过2%的通货膨胀，也许这就是他们所谓的良性工资-价格螺旋上升。

And as Japan has sustainably moved to out of deflation, the central bank has been thinking about pairing back stimulus. We've seen them hiking. They're expected to hike again. And they're also, they've been doing QT. And they're also thinking about slowly, slowly selling out of their equity profile that they've accumulated in the past.

随着日本逐步摆脱通货紧缩，中央银行开始考虑减少经济刺激措施。他们已经进行了加息，并预计还会再次加息。同时，他们也在进行量化紧缩。此外，他们还在考虑逐步出售过去积累的股票资产。

But what's happened though is that because of this tremendous bull market in the Nikkei, the central bank is actually sitting on tremendous amounts of profits. So even though they're expected to sell about 1% of their holdings a year, so it's going to take many, many decades for them to finally get out of their equity position, their equities have appreciated so much that they're generating sizable profits, according to Bloomberg's calculations.

由于日经指数的显著大牛市，日本央行实际上积累了大量利润。因此，尽管他们预计每年出售大约1%的持股，这意味着要花费几十年才能彻底清空其股票头寸，但根据彭博社的计算，他们的股票升值非常大，从而产生了可观的利润。

Maybe they're going to net, let's say, profits about a half percent of a GDP a year through unwinding their asset purchases. So this experiment in buying equities, which seems so unconventional, maybe even reckless back then, is actually having very positive fiscal benefits that it's helping to, helping them to reduce their fiscal deficit. And that reminds me of other central banks.

也许他们将通过逐步出售资产，每年净赚大约相当于国内生产总值的0.5%的利润。因此，这项购买股票的实验，当时看起来是如此非常规，甚至有些鲁莽，但实际上正在带来非常积极的财政效益，帮助他们减少财政赤字。这让我想到了其他一些中央银行。

Again, it's very unconventional for a central bank to buy equities, but another one big one is the Swiss national bank. It actually buys it for a very different reason. For Switzerland, they, for them, their currency is a very important policy lever because they are a big exporter, watches and chocolates and so forth.

再说一次，中央银行购买股票是非常不寻常的，但还有一个大银行这样做，那就是瑞士国家银行。它购买股票的原因非常不同。对于瑞士来说，货币是一个非常重要的政策工具，因为他们是一个大的出口国，出口手表、巧克力等等。

But the problem for them is that they are widely perceived because they're a well-rounded country to be a safe haven in your land. So when you have concerns about what's happening in Europe, a lot of wealthy Europeans will hide their money in Switzerland. That causes the Swiss franc to appreciate too much and makes their exports uncompetitive.

对他们来说，问题在于，他们被广泛认为是一个稳定和全面发展的国家，会被视为你土地上的避风港。因此，当人们对欧洲的情况感到担忧时，许多富有的欧洲人会将他们的钱藏在瑞士。这导致瑞士法郎过度升值，使得他们的出口产品失去竞争力。

So in order to push against this massive appreciation of their currency, the Swiss national bank would be selling francs and buying foreign currency, trying to weaken their currency. And because they hold so much foreign currency, they don't want to put it just all in treasuries or other sovereign debt. They also buy equities as well. And since they've been doing for that for some time, I'm guessing they're also sitting on significant windfalls.

为了抑制本国货币大幅升值，瑞士国家银行会卖出瑞士法郎并购买外币，试图使瑞士法郎贬值。由于他们持有大量的外汇，不想只把这些资金投入国债或其他主权债务中，所以他们也会购买股票。而且由于他们已经这样做了一段时间，我猜测他们也因此获得了可观的收益。

So this is a pretty interesting story where when central banks are actually buying equities, it could actually have a positive impact on a country's finances when the equity market goes up. And again, the Fed has not and is forbidden by law to buy equities. But I think it's just an interesting case where should this tool be deployed? We have examples of it being deployed successfully.

这是一个挺有趣的故事，当央行实际购买股票时，如果股市上涨，可能会对一个国家的财政产生积极影响。目前，美联储并没有购买股票，并且法律禁止他们这样做。但我认为这是一个有趣的情况，值得考虑是否应使用这一工具。我们已有成功运用该工具的例子。

All right. So that's all I've prepared for today. Thanks so much for tuning in. And next week, I think I'll give my markets 2026 overview. Of course, it's just for entertainment purposes and sometimes I'm wrong, sometimes I'm right, sometimes I'm wrong a lot. So we'll review how my 2025 outlook did as well. All right. Talk to you guys next week.

好的。这就是我今天准备的全部内容。非常感谢大家的收看。下周，我会为大家提供一个关于2026年市场的概要。当然，这只是娱乐性质的预测，有时候我会对，有时候我会错，有时错得还挺多的。我们也会回顾一下我对2025年的展望表现如何。好的，下周再见。