Daily Commentary

MarketMinder’s View: This long-ish piece provides a broad look at America’s economy in 2025, in terms of both perception and reality. Many of the observations play into some of this year’s big talking points, like the allegedly K-shaped economy and AI’s supposed responsibility for resilient business investment. We disagree with a lot of it (and have written about many of these items), but the article also indirectly highlights a broader point. (It also includes some rather charged political discussion, so a friendly reminder that MarketMinder is politically agnostic, assessing developments solely for their potential market and/or economic effects.) That point: While forecasts imply GDP growth slowed this year and there are some obvious soft pockets, the US economy performed better than expected this year. That, friends, is all stocks need. Not perfect. Not great. Not even very good. A little (or a lot) better than feared is plenty. To wit: “That mixed picture is far better than the dire forecasts of last spring, when many economists warned that President Trump’s tariffs would lead to runaway inflation, a recession — or both.” Bingo! Stocks move on the gap between reality and expectations, and the latter slipped into the gutter following President Donald Trump’s Liberation Day tariff announcement. Yet widespread calls for recession overlooked global commerce’s ability to work around and/or shoulder tariffs’ added costs—the key reason behind America’s economic resilience this year. This article documents a lot of that, including how tariff delays bought companies time to adjust their supply chains and healthy profit margins allowed several to absorb tariffs instead of passing them to customers. As the article aptly acknowledges early on, a “resilient” economy may not always be a “good” one. But stock markets overwhelmingly showed resilience can be very bullish this year.

MarketMinder’s View: Here is a date to watch for in British politics: UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves will deliver her Spring Statement on March 3, 2026—a bit early by historical standards (sans 2021’s). As a refresher, this is when the UK’s Chancellor updates Parliament on the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR’s) forecasts—covering things like growth, inflation, borrowing and debt—and the government’s progress on goals laid out in the prior autumn’s budget release. Historically, it has functioned as a supplemental budget, with a spate of fiscal policy changes announced. The government is seeking to change this, however, with an administrative tweak: Reeves has said “the OBR would not make an assessment of the government’s performance against the fiscal mandate, and would instead provide an interim update on the economy and public finances. The Treasury said the government would respond to the OBR’s March forecast with a statement to parliament, in line with a commitment to deliver one major fiscal event each year.” That would imply this is going to be a routine administrative affair—a quick update on the numbers and no major fiscal policy changes. Presuming this approach holds and the Spring Statement is indeed boring, that would help keep uncertainty tame. As the article notes, “months of leaks, briefings and tax speculation contributed to a downturn in consumer spending and businesses freezing their investment plans” in the run-up to this November’s Budget. Doing this twice a year would probably not be a net benefit. Better still would be if the next few Budgets from here were similarly boring, devoid of major changes, as stability tends to encourage risk taking and investment. Time will tell, but getting the Spring Statement out of the way early as a mere box-tick seems like a fine place to start.

MarketMinder’s View: ‘Tis the season for year-end financial checklists, and this one casts a refreshingly wide net beyond the standard take your required minimum distribution, max out your tax-deferred retirement account contributions and make your tax-deductible charitable contributions. Those are all good things! But we like this list because it is less about scrambling on 2025 things and more about starting 2026 on a bright note. Checking your accounts’ listed beneficiaries is a big one: “If you’ve had a marriage, divorce or birth in the family this year, an outdated beneficiary form can cause a legal nightmare later.” Popping into your brokerage firm’s online portal now can save your heirs a lot of time and heartache later. Adjusting your regular retirement account contributions is another good one, as contribution limits are going up. Even if you aren’t in a position to take advantage of this, upping your contributions with “a change so small you probably won’t even feel it” is a viable place to start—and if you have young people in your life, drill this into them. Bolstering security on your personal accounts is another biggie: “Setting up alerts and two-factor authentication on your primary banking and investment accounts is the digital equivalent of dead-bolting your front door. Set your security alerts on your bank and credit card accounts to the minimum setting allowed by the institution.” Cybercriminals and other fraudsters are relentless, so it is always good to preemptively protect yourself and your assets.