Stock Markets Close Out a Record-Setting Year

SPEAKER_1 (0:02)

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Luke Vargas (0:34)

Global markets begin turning the page on a record-setting year. Plus, the AI boom lifted more than stock markets this year. Exhibit A, OpenAI, employee pay packages. And we'll hear from Journal Bureau chiefs from around the world about what to watch for in 2026

Lingling Wei (0:51)

For the coming year, we're going to see China's push for peer equality to the United States. They're actively working to re-engineer the global playing field.

Luke Vargas (1:04)

It's Wednesday, December 31st. I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal. And this is What's News in your feed once a day over the holidays with the top headlines and business stories moving the world today. That is the last opening bell of the year in New York. The final trading session of 2025 finds US stocks slightly lower, but still trading near record highs, with the S&P 500 on pace for a roughly 17% annual gain. It's an outcome that journal reporter David Uberti said looked far from certain earlier this year.

David Uberti (1:45)

The big moment to bookend this year was the quote-unquote liberation day tariffs announced in April by President Trump. It really sparked market chaos, just the idea of a new era of trade barriers really reorienting the global economy away from increased globalization. Markets tanked, investors in Wall Street and elsewhere sold off risky assets. But since then, investors have come back to the market in a very big way. And that's in large part because of this AI boom. Investors have poured money into US tech stocks, and that has really elevated markets to near record levels.

Luke Vargas (2:19)

Well helping to drive that boom is OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT. According to financial data shown to investors, it paid its employees this year more than any tech startup has in history. So what does that work out to for the company's roughly 4,000 employees? An average $1.5 million each in stock-based compensation. In Asia, Hong Kong's Hang Seng has logged its best year since 2017 The Shanghai Composite rose 18 percent, its strongest performance since before the pandemic. But good luck topping Korea's KOSPI, which jumped more than 75 percent, again not seen since 1999 In Europe, Germany's DAX finished up 23 percent in its best year since 2019 While the FTSE in the UK gained 22 percent, its strongest performance since 2009 In other trading, gold and silver futures slipped today but remain on course for the strongest gains since 1979 The US dollar, meanwhile, is on pace to drop more than 6 percent on the year against a basket of other major currencies, which would be its steepest slide since 2017

President Trump is closing out 2025 with his pressure campaign against Venezuela at a fever pitch. According to several US officials, the CIA was behind a strike on a Venezuelan dock earlier this month, marking the agency's first known operation inside the country since Trump authorized covert activity there. He began to pull the lid off the operation last week, first mentioning it on a radio show and revealing more details in subsequent days. The CIA declined to comment. The Kremlin is doubling down on claims that Ukrainian drones targeted a residence of Vladimir Putin's and is using the allegation to justify a hardened stance in peace negotiations. Russia's Defense Ministry Today published a video of what it said was a downed Ukrainian drone. The footage shot in a snowy forest at night couldn't be independently verified. And Ukraine has strongly denied the attack. And the Trump administration says it's stopping child care funding for Minnesota because of a fraud scandal in the state. Deputy Health Secretary Jim O'Neill announced the freeze on social media yesterday.

Jim O'Neill (4:41)

We believe the state of Minnesota has allowed scammers and fake daycares to siphon millions of taxpayer dollars over the past decade.

Luke Vargas (4:47)

Federal prosecutors say dozens of people stole public funds through sham social services operations. Charges were first filed in 2022 under the Biden administration. And Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, a Democrat, said the Trump administration was quote politicizing the issue to defund programs that help Minnesotans. The Administration for Children and Families, an HHS department, sends about $185 million a year to Minnesota in child care funding. Coming up, it's crystal ball time as we ask Journal Bureau chiefs about the developments they'll be keeping an eye out for next year. That's after the break.