Motley Fool Money - The Most Shocking Stories of 2025

Episode Date: December 26, 2025

Do you remember all of the surprises investors got in 2025? We had tariffs, AI upheaval, and even gold having a great year. We discuss all of it. Travis Hoium, Lou Whiteman, and Emily Flippen discuss: - When tariffs shocked the world - When ChatGPT fell behind Google - Gold’s ouperformance - How well do you remember 2025 Companies discussed: Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL), NVIDIA (NVDA), Oracle (ORCL). Sandisk (SNDK), Medline (MDLN). Host: Travis Hoium Guests: Lou Whiteman, Emily Flippen Engineer: Dan Boyd Disclosure: Advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. The Motley Fool and its affiliates (collectively, “TMF”) do not endorse, recommend, or verify the accuracy or completeness of the statements made within advertisements. TMF is not involved in the offer, sale, or solicitation of any securities advertised herein and makes no representations regarding the suitability, or risks associated with any investment opportunity presented. Investors should conduct their own due diligence and consult with legal, tax, and financial advisors before making any investment decisions. TMF assumes no responsibility for any losses or damages arising from this advertisement. We’re committed to transparency: All personal opinions in advertisements from Fools are their own. The product advertised in this episode was loaned to TMF and was returned after a test period or the product advertised in this episode was purchased by TMF. Advertiser has paid for the sponsorship of this episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's the day after Christmas, so it's time to look back on 2025. Motley Fool Money starts now. That's why they call it money. The best thing. Cool global headquarters. This is Motley Fool Money. Welcome to Motley Full Money. I am Travis Hoyam, joined today by Emily Flippen and Lou Whiteman.

Guys, when we look back on 2025, we're getting ready for this show. I almost forgot how much tariffs were a topic just a few months ago. This happened in April. there were sweeping tariffs put on all kinds of imports coming into the U.S. So we have to start there when we were looking back on 2025 because that was thought to be a devastating hit to the U.S. economy. And yet, the S&P 500 is up about 40 percent since then, Lou. What did we learn about tariffs or are we still in sort of this unknown territory?

Okay, so full disclosure, I was one of the people saying the sky is falling. So I'm going to be very defensive in my answer here. I'm likely biased. That said, a couple of things I want to point out. First of all, we live in a world where we're used to hot takes, instant reactions and stuff. Tariffs, like Fed moves and so many other things in the economy, they take time to work through the system. I think if you looked at since April, no, there wasn't that like instant. The world is terrible now. But we've talked about it on here, Travis, the boiling frog economy. And it's just sort of, it's slowly, slowly getting worse. I'm sticking with that. Under the surface, there is signs of distress, even if the stock market's

up. Secondly, on the stock market, Main Street is not Wall Street. Yes, the market is up. The market is always ahead of the economy, ups and downs. Wall Street went through the shock. They went through denial, and then they kind of normalized tariffs pretty quickly. It's, I think, dangerous to say that, yeah, stocks are up 40%, therefore, there's no pain on Main Street, because I do think there's separate things and they are going to play out differently. They did play out differently in 2025, and it will continue to do so. Emily, how do you think about this? Because this was, like, the market reaction was almost like the pandemic. I mean, 2020 things crashed in a few days. That's what happened after the tariffs. But then it doesn't seem like Lou's probably right. There is some, you know,

maybe boiling frog things going on. But you don't go to the store and see prices up 40, 50 percent the way that we maybe thought they were going to be in April. So how do we think about this as investors? Yeah, I love this question because to lose earlier point, what's interesting is that by the end of April, the market had already rebounded and regained all of the losses after the announcement of the tariff. So this was not in time, obviously, to actually see any impact from the tariff. The market was not reacting to whether or not we were going to see 40 or 50% price increases. It was reacting to something else entirely. So, you know, to the Trump administration's credit, the economy clearly did not collapse due to tariffs, and there were pundits, myself included,

that were predicting the worst. I always tend to be a bit of a pessimist. I like to be pleasantly surprised. But let's not forget that in April, that was the narrative. I mean, remember all the big bank CEOs saying a global recession was likely, but it's also true that the economy hasn't exactly boomed, even though the stock market has. And that is, to lose point, an important distinction, right? Just because stock markets going up doesn't mean the average life for Americans are getting better. And the data that we do have to kind of evaluate, that average life of the American is pretty severely delayed, and lots of it's getting question regarding accuracy, too. But it's still fair to look at what we do have and see what it's telling us,

right? Job additions this year have been lower than in the past, and Fed Chair Powell now believes those numbers are overstated to the point where we actually have been potentially losing upwards of 20,000 jobs a month since April. And it's really impossible to say how much of that was due to tariffs versus AI versus business decisions, but they're all key impacts of economic policies, right? So we're still actually looking to see the direct impact of tariffs. And I think it is genuinely still, it's crazy to say this because we're ending out the year of 2025, but it's too early to say that there hasn't been any economic impact from tariffs. It hasn't been what we expected it to be. But there are so many other variables going on today and a growing disconnect

between the market and the average person that the real impact probably won't even come until 26. Emily, one of the things that if you're a relatively young investor, let's say you started in the last 15 years, 10 to 15 years. It seems like every one of these dips immediately gets bought. You mentioned it with April. April, things collapse. And then by the end of the month, we're kind of back to normal and we're on an upward trajectory of the rest of the year. Same thing happened in 2021. Oh my gosh, the economy is, the world is shutting down. The stock market collapses. That was when you wanted to be a huge buyer. Is this the trend that things are just collapsing so quickly that the reactions are.

are almost instantaneous and we should be ready to be really aggressive if the market does pull back? Or are these sort of individual things? And we haven't actually seen a real recession in 15, 16 years now. And man, when one of those hits, it's going to be real news for a lot of people who haven't invested through that before. Because I'm having a hard time kind of deciphering between those two things. And it's almost like two things can be true at the same time. But how do you think about those pullbacks? Are you more excited to buy it than ever because they're typically quick bouncebacks? Or are you cautious because eventually we are going to get through to a real recession? It's such an interesting thought. And I do lean on the side of typically staying invested regardless.

And I don't actually keep cash on the sidelines for the most part. I get a paycheck. I invest it whenever I get that paycheck. So you could say that I view it as buying opportunities, regardless of whether or not the market is up or down. But I do think, to your point, Travis, there is an appetite for opportunity. And I am one of those. investors who has not invested through a recession. I am 31 years old. And during the Great Recession, which was really the last time we saw any sustained long market pullback, I obviously was a teenager. I didn't have my life savings in the stock market the way that I do today. And there are so many people out there who are like myself or people who maybe don't necessarily understand the risk that is

associated with, say, a sustained pullback or Great Recession, but are looking for ways to grow and expand their money because opportunities to do so have been so much more limited for younger investors. So it's not a surprise at all that whenever the market pulls back, you see people who do have dry powder on the sidelines jumping in. It's only a matter of time before a recession does come. I don't, you know, the dry powder doesn't last forever, so to speak. But it's so critically important for portfolio management, in my opinion, to encourage everybody to stay invested regardless of what happens to the market in the short term. I agree 100% with Emily in terms of the the advice for investors is to try to block it out and just stay invested. That said,

I'll play the role of the old man in the room because Emily, I got two decades on you, so I guess it counts. But look, I think things bounce back quickly during COVID for good reasons because COVID was a weird recession. It was sort of an artificial outside stimulus recession that was dealt with with outside stimulus. So that makes sense. I am going to be the grumpy old man and say, it is way too soon to draw conclusions on this one. Yes, the stocks bounce back after the announcement, but I don't think we're out of the woods yet at all. I think we are wired to look for opportunities now. Definitely with all the information comes out of so quickly, we can process, we can get all those hot takes. We're not just... And maybe that's a good thing. That's

something that when I started investing, that's not the way that it worked. We're not sitting in alone fear. We're hearing people give opinions. That said, I do think that while Wall Street moves separately from Main Street, there is a connection, and we will inevitably have a recession, and it will inevitably take longer to clear out than we had hoped, and buying in at the first site is going to bite us at some point. Again, as Emily said, the answer is to try not to sell when it's down and try not to save powder and all that, just to ride through it and focus in the long term. But I don't think that we've eliminated cycles. And I think that there is one at some point that's going to really take people by surprise. I'll tell you what. I was not expecting

to learn in this segment that I bought my first stock when Emily was one years old. But here we are. This is my 30th year investing. So next year, here's to 31. We can't go forward to. too far looking back on the year without talking about AI and Chat 2BT.B.T. I don't think anybody would have thought coming into 2025 that OpenAI would be kind of on the defensive by the end of the year. And surprisingly enough, Google and Gemini are playing offense. They're leading in many benchmarks. The stock is up 60% for the year. Emily, it's up 110% since its April lows. Are you shocked by how quickly Google has made a comeback? Or in his, and is, Is Open AI losing steam from what seemed like once insurmountable lead?

I actually am shocked, Travis. And I do think it's maybe too early to say Open AI is behind an AI, but there is certainly evidence that Google's Jim and I has caught up. And in certain cases, I think, surpassed their competitors. And it was surprising to me just because Open AI was basically the poster trial of LLMs, but it really should not be for anybody who took that one level deeper in terms of their thought process, right? because Google was able and is able to drop Gemini into all the places that Alphabet, their parent company already operates.

Search, Workspaces, App, Enterprises, right? Google already has access to all those places that enable them to drive traffic and use that data, plus their huge coffers to improve their model training. So despite the fact that there's not a black and white ranking of who has the best AI, there has been clear strides made by Google. But to your point, Travis, I am still worried for Google shareholders and Google as a company, Alphabet, I really should say, heading into 2026. And that's not because their AI isn't great. I think Gemini has been an incredible product, but it's because they're fighting to retain

revenue, not expand it. Their business is 100% dependent upon advertising. And as advertising dollars potentially move towards search based off LLMs, what's happening is, is if you're a company and you have your ad budget, you have to determine where to spend that money. The budget doesn't just expand because there's new opportunities. Historically, Alphabet has been that key part. partner for advertising budgets, and they need to retain that customer. So they need Gemini to work and they need to integrate advertising into Gemini. That way they can show, hey, we're still the best partner we have for your ad dollars. The more LLMs, the more search and other eyes go elsewhere, even if it's only on the margin, it's possible that Google, despite having incredible

AI, still loses some revenue dollars. And that's what ultimately concerns me for this company. Isn't it then good that Open AI hasn't built an ad business, though? That seems to be... But they're trying to. Yeah, they're trying. Yeah, we haven't seen. That's a long learning curve. We'll see, so we'll see if they can get that. Fun, fun fact that I learned today, because you talked about distribution. Google has five of the top 10 apps in the Apple App Store in 2025. Just, just insane distribution. Yeah, these large companies were only seeing them grow their scale even deeper. And if I, I hesitate to say the words that every investor fears, which is this time is different. And we always talk about what the next Amazon, the next Alphabet's going to be. And I increasingly, as I have joined my older peers here, believe that the next Amazon is probably Amazon. And the next Google is probably Google. The scale these companies are creating, especially with the admin of AI, is only getting bigger by the day.

Yeah. So on the Google point, I think Emily's right that there is still a risk. But I am forever bullish on consumer inertia. And I am forever bullish on the idea that we go to Google.com today. And if they can offer a credible answer for me, I'm not going to look elsewhere. So whether it's AI, search, whatever, I feel pretty good about that. As for the question of, has Open AI fallen behind? I'm not a techie.

I benchmarks to mirror like statistics, you know, easily cherry-picked to do which you want. I can't say that. What I think has happened, though, when Open AI debuted, it was magic. It was this world that we never saw before. And as Gemini and others have followed, that glow has faded, and that's really what has happened. I think our perspective on OpenAI and what it is has changed more than really the race. Here's the important thing, though, Travis to me,

it's not really to me about who has the most cutting edge model or who's behind, because for most of us, they're all moving in the same direction. They're all good enough. But these things are expensive. And in terms of financing, Open AI was behind from the start, no customers, no revenue streams outside of AI. I don't think they've fallen behind, but I think they've always been behind from the all-important financing position. And that to me is the concern. It's not whether or not their model is slightly better than Gemini or slightly better than Anthropic.

It's just who has the cash to throw at this? And that's where I think Alphabet and others are really. way ahead of Open AI, and it's kind of always been that way. We just weren't thinking in those terms. One of the tests I always use is, what is my wife talking about? What are other parents at soccer games and basketball games talking about? And it's moved kind of away from Open AI. So we'll see if those boots on the ground anecdotal insights are true in 2026. When we come back, we are going to talk about something we don't often talk about. It's gold. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. The old adage goes, it isn't what you say. It's how you say.

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With seven terrain modes to choose from, terrain response to fine-tuned your vehicle for the roads ahead. The Range Rover event is on now. Explore enhance offers atrangerover.com. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. This one has a couple of surprises for me. First off, Gold has outperformed, the S&P 500 by about 4X in 2025. That could have meant a flight to safety or hedging against the falling dollar, but Bitcoin is down about 12% as we're recording this year. Emily, what do we make of these dynamics?

Well, I think what you're supposed to make of these dynamics is that, you know, not all commodities are made equal. In this case, Bitcoin is not seen as a store of value the way gold is. And they're compared to each other. Wasn't that the point of it, though? Like, this is what I'm, the theory behind Bitcoin has always, it's like a moving target. And so as we look back on some of these years, I'm always confused. Wait, I thought it was supposed to be an inflation hedge. Oh, I thought it was supposed to be a store of value. And it just doesn't quite seem to be what the, what's being sold. Well, ultimately, the purpose of it is what people are buying and holding it for. And if people were buying and holding Bitcoin as a store of value or an inflation hedge, then we wouldn't see the correlation that we have seen over the last couple of years, which is that Bitcoin is heavily. correlated to equities and not correlated to the performance of other commodities like gold. So what that says to me is that the people who are buying and holding Bitcoin or trading Bitcoin

are doing so more as a trading opportunity, an investment opportunity, a perception of value, as opposed to trying to control their risk or actually trying to hedge their portfolio with it. And it seems like gold, whether that be the central banks of the world, whether whether it be individual consumers, it just has use cases and demand that is supported by people who are okay sitting on and holding this as a hedge or a store of value. In reality, we just don't see that correlation there for Bitcoin yet. People might want that. The creators of Bitcoin and other investors might want that to be the case, but it's not the case today. Yeah, the bull case for Bitcoin is, is how many narratives have there been that have been proven wrong and it's still here,

which speaks to its flexibility? You know, I mean, which is a weird way of saying it. As for gold, I do think it's interesting. I think probably, though, a prediction for 2026, too much is going to be made about the demise of the dollar. I do think what we've seen here is that because of current events, a lot of foreign players decided to hedge their bets and go into gold. And even if everybody only does that 5-10 percent versus the dollar, that's a lot of players. That's a lot of gold and that's what happened.

The euro wasn't looking much better, so that's not a great alternative. currencies have their issues. But look, you know, the point to me still is, is that the dollar for all of its bruising that occurred this year, there still aren't many better options. Gold is not a good option for actually doing commerce. It's a good option for store value. I think that, yes, if we keep maybe going in some of the red directions that cause the interest in gold, the dollar eventually is going to be in trouble. But I'm not ready yet to say that this is, the, This seems like short-term to me and not the beginning of new dollar age yet, and I'm going to stand by that until things get really worse with the dollar.

Lou, it seems like some investors are moving towards safety, as you would think about it, things like gold. We've seen bond yields actually rise, even though the feds reducing interest rates, bond yields, which are impacting the 30-year-or, the mortgage rate and things like that, are actually up over the past few months. Does that tell a story about what the market's thinking going into 2026 because coming into 2025, it was all go-go, everything's going higher, YOLO. It seems a little different if gold's hitting all-time highs. I think it tells a story, but I think we have to be careful about what the story is. I don't, I think it's telling a story about kind of thoughts on U.S. deficits, thoughts on trade and how things are going. I don't,

I think to some extent, as equity investors, we can lean into or observe. it and learn from it. But I don't, I'm not ready to say like, oh, flight to safety, therefore equities are doomed. I think there's a lot going on that doesn't involve equities. And so I think I worry about more over interpreting that than I do ignoring it, if that makes sense. One of those reminders that the debt market is about 10 times the size of the equity market. The currency market is another enormous market with a ton of leverage in it. So not everything is going to be correlated. When we come back, we are going to play a little game and see how much Emily and Lou were paying attention in 2025. You're listening to Motley Full Money. Some of the best lessons

don't come from a classroom. They come from experience. On the power of advice, a new podcast series from Capital Group, you'll hear from CEOs, investors, and founders about how they built careers, took risks, and reinvented themselves. If you're starting your own journey, this is the kind of advice you won't want to miss. Available wherever you get your podcast. published by Capital Client Group, Inc. The point in the show where we like to have a little fun with little post-holiday game, looking back on 2025, what do you remember and what have you completely forgotten? Lou, I'm going to start with you.

What was the first company to reach a $5 trillion valuation? Do you remember this in 2025? Oh, I got to say, no, I don't, but I got to say Nvidia. Yes, yes, you are correct. Sorry, Emily, you don't even get a guess. That is the answer. That's great, because I was going to say Apple. I think they hit a number of the other trillion-dollar marks, but not that one.

It will be interesting. What company do you think is going to be the first $10 trillion company, Emily? Well, if history says anything and this IPO happens, I guess it's going to be SpaceX at some point next year. Yeah, that $1.5 trillion valuation. Yeah, if we get a good IPO bounce. Speaking of IPOs, that was my next question. In dollar terms, what was the biggest IPO of the year, Lou? Biggest IPO the year. Oh, no.

Corweave? That is not correct, Emily. I was also going to say Corrieve, but you know what? Maybe I'll say Figma. Did they raise more money? Now, Medline raised $6.3 billion. That was just recently. I didn't even know that that IPO happened, to be honest. Maybe we need to look into it. That one is completely flew under. Or not. Or not. What was the best? performing stock in the S&P 500 so far. And I have all these numbers in front of me. So, if you want to go through all 500 companies, we can. But Lou, I just want the top one, what is the top performing stock in the S&P 500? Oh, man. Someone told me the other day was

Build a Bear Workshop for like last year or two years, but I don't think that was 2025. It's something AI adjacent, but it isn't going to be Netflix. Da Da Da, Da, Sandusk. Emily, do you have a guess? Yeah, the S&P 500. I mean, gosh, Build a bear certainly doesn't qualify for the test at these rates, right? I know Tesla's pulled back quite a bit, but it had a pretty strong start to the year. Is it Tesla? Tesla's not even close. Sandisk. It is Sandisk. It is Sandisk. 561% returns. A couple of other notable ones. Seagate Technology, 250%. Robin Hood, 230% Micron 213. I don't even know where. where Tesla is down here, but they can't be more than 100%. It's a wild list, if you look at the full list. I want to go in the opposite direction. What was the worst performing stock in the S&P 500?

And this is, I will give you a hint, this is a company that you both are familiar with, Lou. Oh, man. Okay, I was about to say FISA on just recency, but I doubt that that's what you meant with the hint. So, oh, I don't know, FI serve. Emily. I don't know Fisorff, so I know Loo's wrong, if anything. I feel like it might be Lulu Lemon, although I have to imagine there has to be a

worse performer than Lul Lillian, right? Both very, very close. The trade desk is the worst performer. 68% drop in the trade desk. Fisorv second, 67% drop. Yeah, this was the really surprising one to me. Decker's brands, so Decker's Outdoor, down 51%. That's number three.

Lulu Lemon is number six, down. 45% for the year. Those consumer brands have just been absolutely crushed. And like, Emily, coming into the year, I didn't think that that would be the story of the year. But if you look at what we talked about earlier with tariffs, I guess that's kind of the stories that consumer spending is maybe not going where people thought it was in the past. The costs have gone up. Maybe that's the tariff impact that we're seeing in the market. Yeah, it's a one-two punch in my opinion. There is impacts of tariffs and that has for the most part been eaten by corporations, not consumers yet, but we have seen a pullback in discretionary spending by consumers. And we always talk about

that K-shaped economy. It's certainly impacting consumer brands a lot, too. But let's not forget that Decker's Loo Lim, a lot of these companies had incredible run-ups coming out of the pandemic. So a lot of what they've given up this year were gains from previous years. They're just seeing a slowdown across the board. All right. Let's go to interest rates because I think this one is interesting. The Fed funds rate on January 1st of 2025, Lou was? Oh, man. I don't know. Four, four even. Emily? What was the Fed Funds rate? 4.5, 4.75?

4.25% to 4.5%. Today, Lou, that rate is... I don't even know. This is driving the market, Lou. Yeah, I know. I know. But all we focus on is it up or down. It's not... Which is, I think, yeah, there's probably a whole segment in that, right?

They've cut... It's 3.5 to 375, to use your... Lou hit it on the head, so that's it. I think it's interesting. I knew it too. Yeah. Well, I was trying to count how many cuts, but he kind of gave it to it. Anyway.

But what I think is interesting about that is, you're right, Lou, that is what drives the market on a short-term basis. But when you look back on the full year, you don't even remember any of these rate cuts. So it's like that short-term versus long-term thinking, this is what we talk about all the time on the Motley Fool, but that's it at work right there. You don't even remember what the rate was a year ago. Right. All right, related to interest rates, and this is a little bit more directly impacting people's pocketbooks. Maybe not the same trends. What was the 30-year mortgage rate on January 1st, Lou? And then as a follow-up, I'm going to ask you what it is today. So let's

start with January 1st. See, as someone who hasn't been in the market for a mortgage in a long time. I'm going to say it was at high fours, 4.825. Emily, Emily is questioning that already. There's no way. Somebody who bought a house semi-recently, there's no way. Yeah, I bought my house in 2023. And if mortgage rates were below 5.5%, which is where my mortgage is sitting at the moment, I hope that I would have been wise enough to consider a refinance at that point. So I have to believe that they were above 6% to start the year, although I do know they've come down a bit. I still think they're above 5% today, though, right? Emily, I'm going to have a you guess beginning of the year and end of the year. Let's go, 6.25% at the beginning of the year and 5.6% end of the

year. This is coming from, I think, it's bank rate, 6.9% at the beginning of the year, 6.2% today. Obviously, there's going to be variations depending on your credit score and the duration of your loan and things like that. But that's a standard 30-year loan. That's where rates are. Look, 6.2%. What's crazy is we have a 2.875% mortgage that we refinanced during the pandemic. That makes moving just, I mean, we're not thinking about moving right now, but just almost impossible if you're giving up that rate. And that's one of those things that I think is going to be, that's going to last for 5, 10, 15 years for those of us who have that kind of rate locked in. All right. For 24 hours, about 24 hours, give or take, who was the richest person in the world in the month of September?

But it was only for about a day. Lou, who was that? Larry Ellison. Emily? Easy, Louise. Was it a celebrity? Was it Kim Kardashian? Was that the Spanx IPO?

I remember this story. I don't remember if it was Larry or someone else, though. Yeah, it was Larry Ellison that one day that Oracle's stock popped 40%. He was the richest person in the world. I think that has changed now that SpaceX is planning to go public with a $1.5 trillion evaluation, but we'll see how that plays out. I wanted to get your thoughts on where, what would have made money over the past year? So I have a couple of asset classes. If you had invested $1,000 in Bitcoin on January 1st, how much would you have now? Gosh, I don't know.

Would you say $100,000 or $1,000? $1,000. $880. Emily? $1,100. No, Bitcoin is down for the year. You would have $930. Now here's the other, here's the harder question, Lou.

If you had turned your U.S. dollars into euros on January 1st, how much would those euros be worth in U.S. dollar terms as a, of today. That $1,000 would be worth, gosh, it spiked up and then went back down. I just say it's basically a thousand. No, that's boring. A thousand fifty dollars. Emily? Let's lock in $1,100, Travis. Emily, $1,140. Wow. So, yeah, it's just crazy. And this is what I wanted to bring this back to the tariff discussion that we had earlier, was our tariffs more important in 2025 to the economy, or was it the drop in the dollar? Emily, like, what do you think? Because the dollar dropping 11% is huge. Yeah, it's sizable. It's not unusual to see currency changes like that,

but I do think the reaction that we've seen from central banks across the world is very indicative of this. And we already talked about the performance of gold over the course of this year. And about a quarter of that over the course of the past year was driven by buying by central banks. And it's not that they're holding less US dollars or that US dollars are less important. I mean, it's still the global currency, right? But it is showing that they're diversifying away from US dollars, which is putting pressure on the US dollar. We're going to end on this one. I'll give you a softball to end it. The S&P 500, I'm going to go with SPY, the ETF. Well, how much is it up in 2025? And the winner is going to be the one that can.

gets closer here, Lou? 15%. It was very close to what I was going to guess. I'm not to go higher than Lou, though, because I know our recommendations in Stock Advisor. It's been heck of a time trying to keep up with the market performance this year. I remember even some of our best performing individual stocks are still trailing the market, even though they've done some incredible worker for the course of the past year. So even though 15% was maybe where my head was, I think I'm going to go 20% because I have to be

contradictory and I also need to be right. you were you were right in the direction but the magnitude a little bit off 16.2% so our fictional winner for today is Lou. It's it's so interesting to look back at least I didn't say negative. Yeah, true. It's so interesting to look back on the year and think about what we thought coming into the year, what actually drove the market because when we're, especially when you're looking at this things on the day-to-day basis like we are, you can lose sight of that long-term

picture. So hopefully that was helpful and you guys had fun with this little game. When we come back, we are going to talk about stocks on our radar. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. These days, I'm all about quality over quantity, especially in my closet. If it's not well-made and versatile, it's just not worth it. That's honestly why I love Quince. The fabrics feel elevated, the cuts are thoughtful, and the pricing actually makes sense.

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Please check out our show notes. I wanted to go back and look at what we thought about the market coming into 2025 because Emily, a lot has happened, but the conventional wisdom coming into 2025 hasn't really played out. If you remember, the election had just happened, crypto was on an absolute tear. Elon Musk was entering the Whitehout. it seemed obvious that crypto and Tesla in particular were going to be really well positioned, but that hasn't really happened. So is anything really obvious anymore? Because as we look towards

2026, it seems like uncertainty is sort of the name of the game. Yeah, it's funny, Travis. You know, look, I failed economics in college, at least once because I would get so frustrated with the professor who would say, well, this is how things should work. And I'd be like, well, there's all these other different variables. It doesn't always operate like that, right? And I would, I would have, would get frustrated about the concept of what's theoretical versus what's practical. And I think that same thing is true in life, right? You can believe things are supposed to work a certain way. You can come into a year thinking, here's all the factors, here's how it's supposed to play out. But the reality is that the world we live in isn't black and white. There's a lot of different variables that continue to impact

different aspects of what should otherwise be a pretty simple equation. And those factors change people and they change how they react. So in my opinion, the lesson coming into 2026 is to focus on you wear process, not the outcome, because sometimes the outcome is very different than the process and the work that you put into decision-making. Yeah, to answer the question, is anything obvious? No. And that's what makes this fun. It also might explain my lack of hair, but that's just kind of how it works. The big takeaway for me is that, look, we are terrible at predicting the future, but the more you focus on long-term trends versus short-term trends, we can't predict reactions. We can, I mean, it's a bit at the

It's the boring way to say it, but it's over and over again. Find good companies that can weather storms in bad time and are compelling cases in good times and just go out as far as you can. Not that you can predict what things look like in 10 to 15 years, but where we get caught up is the speed bumps, the turbulence, the air pockets, trying to predict what's next. And yeah, maybe other people are good at it. I am really crummy at it.

So it's best to not try. Lou, how do you think about those obvious things in that short-term thinking and long-term thinking? And then the disruption that ultimately happens. I mean, that was one of the stories coming into the year. I'll bring just another thing. You know, everybody thought Google was toast. And we talked about them in Gemini and ChatDBT a little bit earlier. But, you know, there's one where you could have bought Alphabet stock at 16 times earnings.

That's a great company that is trading for a good value that ended up not being a value trap. but sometimes you get a Nike, and that just keeps going lower. The Trade Desk, another one that we talked about earlier, how do you differentiate between what's a great company that the market has short-term thinking and what is something that's fundamentally broken? I think, I mean, to be honest, I don't think there is a set formula. I think you have to look at every situation and try and figure it out on your own. I do this a lot.

Most of the time I spend looking at stocks are kind of fallen angels trying to figure out of their value. I can tell you, for everyone that's been a double, I have one that hasn't worked out. So, you know, like, don't, again, just the simple block and tackling lessons. Don't be overtly concentrated. Don't assume you know everything. Don't get too arrogant. And just look at the situation and try and filter out the noise from where is this company going long term. Easier said than done.

But I think you just have to take a look and look at the individual situation. Try and make sense of it if he can. If you can't, stay away. We like to end this show by getting to Stocks on our radar. Let's bring in Dan Boyd to get some questions from him. Emily, I think you have the most explaining to do. So why don't you go first here? That I do.

The stock on my radar this week is coupon. The ticker is C-P-N-G. For anybody who's unaware, Ku-Pong is a South Korean e-commerce business, often likened to the Amazon of South Korea. but to be honest, they do a lot more. They have streaming services. They have like the Uber eats, food delivery, the Instacart-esque grocery delivery. They're basically a way of life in South Korea. And it's unfortunately on my radar this week for some bad news. They had a massive data breach

that led to the exposure of the private information of the majority of the population of South Korea, because that is how widespread coupon is. And now the founder and CEO is coming under fire for not showing up for some of the court cases that are coming out of this issue in South Korea. They did oust the Korean CEO, but not the founder himself who lives here in the United States. So they're in some deep water here, but the reason why I still like this opportunity, even though the stock has given back virtually all of its gains this year, is because this is such a big issue, simply because coupon is that important to the economy and the everyday life of people in South Korea. I think the company will get through this controversy. And I think,

I think it just goes to show how pervasive and how monopolistic this business is. Dan, how do you feel about CEOs who don't show up for court appearances? You know, Emily, one of Emily's favorite things to do on this show is to bring companies, she likes a sandbag, basically. She likes to bring companies to radar stocks that are having trouble, and she knows are in the news for bad reasons. And I don't know, maybe just to see what happens. She likes chaos at Emily. Yeah, yeah, I don't know, man. This is a tough one. I don't know if I would want to be investing in a company like that. You're lost, Dan.

All right, Lou, what's on your radar this week? Dan, I'm going to go on a limb and say I have one that you do know what they do. I'm talking about Boeing. Boeing has been flying through turbulence for, it's been a half decade now. Numerous attempts have been made to call the bottom and all have been proven way premature. With all that said, I'm going to call a bottom. I think Boeing has finally gotten management right, which it didn't do the first time around. CEO Kelly Ordberg has been there about a year now, is cleaning up the mess.

Regulators are easing restrictions on airplane productions, which should lead to a big boost in free cash flow. Boeing won't be free cash flow positive in 2025, but I think they can generate $10 billion plus by 2028. If they can fly straight, it's important to remember Boeing is one half of the biggest, most important important duopoly in the globe, and it has nearly a decade worth of a backlog for orders and new jets. I can't believe I'm saying this, but Boeing, I think, is one of the best ideas for 2026. Dan, what do you think about Boeing? I mean, the meme is that Boeing planes fall out of the sky, right? So I'm not sure about either one of these companies, Travis, if I'm going to be honest, but I do like about Boeing that it is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia.

There you go. Well, we are apparently going dumpster diving today, so are you choosing the founder who won't show up to court or the planes that fall out of the sky? I got a route for the home team, Travis, so we're going to go Boeing. For Lou Whiteman, Emily Flippin, Dan Boyd behind the glass, and the entire Motley Fool team, I'm Travis Hoyum. Thanks for listening to Motley Fool Money. We'll see you here tomorrow.