CNBC Daily Open: A banner year for markets in 2025 – CNBC

May this year prove as lucrative as 2025, when the S&P 500 rallied 16.39% mostly on the back of enthusiasm over artificial intelligence, though some pockets of the sector (looking at you, Oracle) noticeably weakened as the year drew to a close.

Since U.S. markets have only been open for a day thus far, and most investors and analysts might still be stubbornly nursing their New Year’s Day champagne (maybe I’m just speaking for myself), here’s a round-up of CNBC’s end-of-the-year retrospectives that paint, in broad strokes, what 2025 looked like.

• The prize for the most magnificent of the Magnificent Seven goes to Google-parent Alphabet. Despite shares tumbling 18% in the first quarter, they ended the year up 65%, as investors saw the company’s release of Gemini 3 as a potential competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

• The MSCI All Country World Index gained over 21% last year, with Colombia’s stock market the surprise leader of the pack, surpassing even South Korea’s exchange that is stacked with AI names.

• Even as gold enjoyed a phenomenal year, climbing more than 64% in 2025, it was outshone by its sibling silver, which surged over 141% in the same period. Perhaps this could be copper’s year? 

• Retail investors clung fast to their TACOs, buying shares during market dips early in the year, which helped them beat AI stock baskets run by JPMorgan, the bank said. Wall Street, meet your newest trading rival: Reddit.

Here’s to a fruitful year of trading!

U.S. attacks Venezuela. The military operation, which overthrew and captured the country’s president Nicolas Maduro, was conducted Saturday stateside. A U.S. federal indictment is charging Maduro with a narco-terrorism conspiracy.

Confusion over the future of Venezuela. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday appeared to backtrack on President Donald Trump’s claim that the U.S. will “run” oil-rich Venezuela. Analysts think energy markets should remain steady in the near term.

U.S. stocks wobble Friday. On the first trading day of 2026, the S&P 500 rose 0.19%, but gave up earlier gains of as much as 0.7%.The pan-European Stoxx 600 added 0.67%. Britain’s FTSE 100 broke the 10,000 level during trading, but closed at 9,951.14.

BYD overtakes Tesla as top seller of EVs. The Chinese automaker said Thursday it sold 2.26 million battery-powered cars in 2025, surpassing Tesla’s 1.64 million. It’s a sign of how Chinese EV makers are dominating the market.

[PRO] U.S. labor market data to set the tone. The year kicks off with the U.S. nonfarm payrolls report for December, out Friday, which will provide market watchers the first sign of how the economy has been holding up.

SpaceX stock debut is the big market event of 2026. Why Musk’s venture could be biggest IPO ever

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is reportedly looking at a value of around $1.5 trillion when it hits the public market. That would surpass the prior record set by the Saudi Aramco IPO in 2019.

Musk said late last month that reports of the space technology company’s plans to go public this year were “accurate.” Multiple outlets reported that the IPO was in the works following a share sale valuing the firm at around $800 billion.

— Alex Harring