2025 Was a BIG WINNER for Personal Growth

2025 kicked off with a markets consolidating (bearish) for several months, before the rug was finally pulled, just as we were expecting. MSM blamed Trump tariffs, predictions of a recession followed the very next day. I remember it like yesterday, the whole thing was a ruse, we saw coming months prior... Heck, I egged it on. 

If you want to shake out the boomers you gotta break the Dow Jones, still trading above 40k. @CNBC #DowJones pic.twitter.com/H8CU5g6jgP

— Veteran Market Timer (@3Xtraders) April 4, 2025

 

Once the bears were trapped; next came one of the most massive bullish reversals in Nasdaq history, and did the Trump bears turn bullish as a the plethora of Trump deals came down the pike? No, they could be found hiding in everything from precious metals, to crypto, and to this very day they remain absolutely certain that, "Tariffs are inflationary". 😅 

Same Market Same Ol' Song and Dance 

By the 4th of July it was starting to look like the Covid rally all over again - Tech/ Mag7/ AI/ including a familiar name NVIDIA, had led the entire "everything rally", but then something odd happened. The same folks who pushed the AI animal instincts narrative suddenly started talking up "AI bubble" theory, while claiming that the rally was broadening out. We debunked that nonsense early-on [link]         

The truth: When Mag7 wasn't leading markets, and because energy couldn't lead... stealth rallies in whack-a-mole (sector rotation) trades became commonplace. We saw every type of junk stock driven to the moon and back.  50%The Rotation Lineup is Longer than Santa's Naughty List  

• Crypto 
• Gold, Silver, Platinum, even Rare Earths  
• Speculative AI stonks
• Solar, Green energy 
• Cannabis stocks 🎄up +50% in one day in Dec. 13th. Grok thought  that was normal; lacks common sense - read the manual.  
• Healthcare/ Biotech   
• On Comet, on Cupid, on Cramer, and Stupid - They even tried to drive casinos into a short squeeze 

If you missed any of these trades you missed a lot! 

But 2025 was not all success stories 

In fact most stocks have not performed well in 2025, and a look at the new highs vs new lows proves it! 

$NYHL  NYSE New Highs vs New Lows. Worse market we've seen since 2018  

$KMB Kimberly Clark 

Household name, consumer staples - give back all the gains of the past 5 years. Dividend. What dividend?  

$SHAK -  $SHAK is the poster child for the pump 'n' dump - just look at the chart!     - $25 cheeseburger anyone? HARD PASS! 

Speaking of the Pump 'n' Dump: Crypto was run up on Trump's 2nd win, and then came the crypto unwind including memestock $MSTR 

Looks like Crypto is crashing again, and dragging on US futures. Chinese tech also getting crushed #China pic.twitter.com/cpUQoWkzZZ

— Veteran Market Timer (@3Xtraders) October 14, 2025

Today Ethereum is caught in a seemingly endless death spiral. The entire summer rally has evaporated. 

I started beating the bear drum in the fall, and even though stocks continued to hold up in a mostly sideways pattern, momentum is dead.  

Equal-weight reality the $SPX is not even up year over year, once you account for inflation. 

But 2025 Was a BIG YEAR for Personal Growth 

• Added the TradingView platform to my toolbox - game changer 
• Took a deep dive into the ThinkOrSwim platform—expanded my reach 10 fold. 
• Took the crash course in Options trading - massive shoutout to Grok/AI for helping me finally crack the code.
• Traded the absolute shit out of my wife's 401k, without getting flagged for excessive trading behavior. Here's how I did it [link]  
• New record number of blogs created record also attributable to my trust sidekick Grok/AI 
• Charting technique and discipline? I learned more in 2025 than the previous 3-4 years combined. Who knew, I'd still be learning after 15 years?    

What's not predictable or preventable is AI wildcard 2026: 

Ex-Google Exec (WARNING): The Next 15 Years Will Be Hell Before We Get To Heaven!

New Years Resolution 2026: Stick with the winning side of the trade.

When Flash Surges and Flash Crashes Collide: Silver's Post-Christmas Magic Trick

Ah, the holidays—family gatherings, stockings pinned to the chimney with care, and... an 11% surge in Silver, on thinner-than-mulled cider trading volume? Welcome to the wonderful world of year-end market anomalies, where liquidity dries up and craziness takes over. 

Same story as last week:

1. "tight supply". Same bs story they sold investors when Natural Gas ran to $10. 

 2. "Safe haven demand", because after all Silver (unlike gas) has intrinsic value blah blah - look Silver is an industrial metal, not Gold. 

3. What the silver bugs don't want to talk about is that speculative money that exited crypto markets has somehow found it's way into - you got it! - Silver.        

Proof: Google searches for Crypto hit yearly lows, as Silver surges 

Makes you wonder what internet searches for "pawn shop" are doing—I hit my local one yesterday, and the broker admitted most retail folks are selling silver, not buying. We joked about how we both sold our main Silver hoards around closer to $30. Then I Walked out with a fancy price for a heavy men's bracelet I paid way less for back in the '90s.
Window Dressing 101: Whatever crushed it all year (this time, materials/ metals/ AI), funds gotta show they're fully invested when books close. Delay profit-taking till 2026 to dodge brutal short-term cap gains taxes— we're talking millions saved for whales and hedgies.
Short Squeeze Fuel: After getting silver wrong earlier my levered short in paper contracts got obliterated—better fake money lessons than real! Holiday squeezes aren't new, and this one just put some extra tinsel on the tree.  

Thin Volume Flying Daggers Cut Both Ways 

Same low-liquidity conditions that fuel parabolic surges can also trigger unexplained flash crashes... and lately, some of those crashes seem to mysteriously disappear from the record overnight. If you recall, we recently saw a classic bear fund (Leuthold Grizzly Short) quietly taken down like a penny stock with no bid underneath [link] . Lately though, I've spotted the opposite: several bull mutual funds showing sharp intraday drops that vanish from charts days later. Even Grok couldn't shed light on it. 

Enter $OGLIX Oppenheimer Global - Flash Crash 

$FRCSX Franklin Small Caps This is one of my favorites, because there are no excessive trading restrictions on it. This 401(k) “Excessive Trading” Loophole Is Still Wide Open in 2026 [link] 

Confirmed on the weekly chart - the day after Christmas. Will Santa's elves come in and fix this chart over the weekend? I can't wait! lol    

Speaking of Small Caps: Did you know that the Russell ETF recently made new all time highs, while S&P 600 small caps continue to totally underperform. Just goes to show that ETF charts can be way off. 

Re: Friday's 10-11% flash surge in Silver same type of anomalies.  Watch for markets to come to their senses once volume begins to pick up next week, or the week after... 

As long as these phantom flash crashes and overnight 'repairs' keep happening, the wife's 401k stays sidelined— in a safe fund. No Russian roulette with the nest egg. Broader market? Still predictable Q4 window dressing...

Final: Word on the Street is traders are planning to take cover in energy stocks, during the great unwind, but I wouldn't put any of my eggs in that basket.  

Take Cover, 

AA 

P.S. I have my own theory on what's really going on, as we continue to see markets 'fixed' in the middle of the night. Santa's elves are hard at work, dressing the windows for the holidays.